<story><title>Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels</title><url>http://gigaom.com/2011/12/11/why-spotify-can-never-be-profitable-the-secret-demands-of-record-labels/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>worldvoyageur</author><text>Forget the labels, Spotify is dead.  The corpse just hasn&apos;t hit the ground yet:&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am paid $0.00029 per stream of a song on Spotify, and even this amount depends on whether the song is being streamed by a paid user or someone using the service for free.  This means it will take upwards of 3,500 streams of a single song on Spotify to earn $1.00 versus that same revenue for one iTunes song purchase...I’ll go even further to say that I actually prefer illegal downloading over Spotify because when you get music illegally it’s at least implicit in the transaction that what you’re doing is potentially harmful to the artist.  But with Spotify, your conscience is clear because you’re either enduring ads or paying to use the service and access the music.  But from the blue-collar artist’s perspective...there’s little discernible difference between $0.00029 and $0.00...which is why I will withhold any new releases from Spotify in the future.&quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-how-free-music-makes-more-than-sense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read the whole blog, it jam packed with more than enough insight to make it worth multiple readings.&lt;p&gt;Even absent the labels, Spotify is a lousy deal for individual music makers.&lt;p&gt;The search for a viable, sustainable online business model for music is still underway, but unlimited streaming for a low monthly fee is not it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mseebach</author><text>&amp;#62; Forget the labels, Spotify is dead.&lt;p&gt;Let me guess, Netcraft confirms it? I&apos;ll believe it when I see it.&lt;p&gt;Spotify (and similar services) is transforming the way we can listen to music, and, at least for me, I vastly prefer the Spotify experience over anything else I&apos;ve tried. Also, with Spotify, I&apos;m spending more money on music than I ever did before, and I&apos;m not even considering bothering with piracy. I&apos;m living the promise that if only accessing music legally is easy enough, the pirate will stop being pirates.&lt;p&gt;So small artists are getting screwed over. Is that in Spotifys interests to sustain that? I would not think so, because the value proposition falls apart if the available collection isn&apos;t comprehensive. But right now, they&apos;re preoccupied in a land grab, for which they need to focus on the big labels, as the land grab will be possible without small indies, but not without Rihannas full back catalogue.&lt;p&gt;If you&apos;re an artist and you don&apos;t think Spotify is a good deal, feel free to withdraw your music - that will push them to think about how to adjust their business model to better accommodate indies.&lt;p&gt;Spotify is nowhere near having finalised their business model. Declaring the whole thing dead on the back of a few blog posts is just a little bit premature.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Spotify can never be profitable: The secret demands of record labels</title><url>http://gigaom.com/2011/12/11/why-spotify-can-never-be-profitable-the-secret-demands-of-record-labels/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>worldvoyageur</author><text>Forget the labels, Spotify is dead.  The corpse just hasn&apos;t hit the ground yet:&lt;p&gt;&quot;I am paid $0.00029 per stream of a song on Spotify, and even this amount depends on whether the song is being streamed by a paid user or someone using the service for free.  This means it will take upwards of 3,500 streams of a single song on Spotify to earn $1.00 versus that same revenue for one iTunes song purchase...I’ll go even further to say that I actually prefer illegal downloading over Spotify because when you get music illegally it’s at least implicit in the transaction that what you’re doing is potentially harmful to the artist.  But with Spotify, your conscience is clear because you’re either enduring ads or paying to use the service and access the music.  But from the blue-collar artist’s perspective...there’s little discernible difference between $0.00029 and $0.00...which is why I will withhold any new releases from Spotify in the future.&quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-how-free-music-makes-more-than-sense&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://derekwebb.tumblr.com/post/13503899950/giving-it-away-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Read the whole blog, it jam packed with more than enough insight to make it worth multiple readings.&lt;p&gt;Even absent the labels, Spotify is a lousy deal for individual music makers.&lt;p&gt;The search for a viable, sustainable online business model for music is still underway, but unlimited streaming for a low monthly fee is not it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ecaradec</author><text>Corrolary : if piracy leads to anything above 1 sell for 3500 illegally downloaded songs, it is actually more beneficial to majors that Spotify is.</text></comment>