I Know. I've Written About This before...and Twice Before That. I've even mentioned it in a few of my Videos.
"Get Over It!" "It Is What It Is..." "This Is Just the Way It Goes, The Cat's Out Of The Bag and It's NEVER Going Back In!" are the loudest comments I frequently receive when I begin to ask questions and One Expert actually called me Stupid on his forum. That Was Fun. This is the Music Industry, Boy! March In Step. Head Up, Shoulders Back. Eyes Forward!
Musicians, Artists and especially Songwriters KNOW They Don't Make Any Money. It's a Business Where Everyone Else Makes Money OFF You, FROM You and BEFORE You. It's Always Been Like This and Since the Tech Companies are the New Record Labels, It Will Grow Worse! You MUST Put Your Music on THEIR Platform, on THEIR Terms or You're Guaranteed Obscurity and Ostracism. Certainly, You Are Not Even a Real Artist / Band If Your Music is Not on Spotify. Furthermore, Idiot, Your Incessant Complaining Guarantees that You're a Whining Amateur who's Not at All Serious About Your Music Or Else You'd Shut Up & Sign Up. It's Free!
Never Mind The Money You'll Never See. Although Please Understand, Everyone Else from Plumbers to Carpenters, Electricians, Painters, Mechanics, Bakers, Tattoo Artists, 11 Year Old Lemonade Salespersons and Oh Yeah, Tech Companies Earn Income for their Services, but Compose a Song that Half the World Wants to Sing and See Virtually No Residuals!
Spotify is the Car Manufacturer. The Songs are the Tires & Transmission Extremely Essential to Moving this Vehicle Along. Spotify and other such platforms, first Convince All Car Buyers that they can Drive as Often as They Wish, Wherever they Wish, As Long as They Wish at a Marvelous Price; all the while using the Most Trusted Music Marketers & Magazines to Convince the Songwriting Artists to Give Away their Goods. Once the Tires are Threadbare and the Transmission has logged a Million Miles, Artists (If Lucky) Receive a Puny Royalty Payment of a Few Thousand Dollars. In What Surrogate World, Other than Music, Does This System Make Sense and the Content Creators Cooperate?
I Know. I Know. I KNOW! This is An Archaic, Bathetic, Mawkish Attempt toward Reasoning that Many have tried before and failed miserably. Two Million+ Artists proudly Boast Themselves as Spotify Artists, with 75 Million PAYING Subscribers, but when I Googled "How many artists have made a million dollars on Spoitfy?" on 8/8/18, there were NO Results. There was this article halfway down from Time Magazine back in 2014 about Taylor Swift yanking her music off and what she could have made, yada, yada - I'm not even going to link to it - this is 2018 and Spotify is worth $36 Billion Dollars, A Nice Payday When You Don't Have to Pay for the Tires!
I Will Link to this Long Winded FastCompany Article published on 8/6/18 about Spotify's "Global Domination" and only three (3) Artists are mentioned within the whole thing: Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Metallica (but only in passing).
I'm Not Envious. I'm Not a Hater. I'm Very Much A Capitalist. I Applaud & Embrace Achievement and the Rewards which accrue as a result. As An EntreMusican, I'm Down with Earning As Much Money as I Am Able to Receive while Serving those who Enjoy My Artistry, Even to Exorbitance. I Am Against Taking Advantage of Others, Especially Those Solely Responsible for My Success. To Some, It's Just Business and I understand that's how a Lot of Business was Conducted In the Music Business Under The Old Model, but the Internet was Supposed to Change All of That, Especially for Indie Musicians, Remember? Here We Are 25 Years Later and Unfortunately, We've Been Coerced to Conclude otherwise.
So Let's Go Ahead, Put Our Music on Spotify. There is No Other Road to Exposure or Earnings. We Don't Have the Brains to Come Up With an Alternative Technology to Stream Our Own Music from Our Own Servers. Then there's All of that Work to Build Our Own Tribes, Get The Word Out and Persuade (Pay) The Mass Media to Convince Our Fans to Come to Our Space, Download Our Apps, Climb into Our Communities and Stream With Us! But We Should take the Time Away from Our Craft to Learn All of The Spotify Methods & Mechanisms to Clamber Up Their Charts
The Absolute Best Thing We Can Do for Our Career Is Write a Genuine Hit, Grab The Very Best Musicians & Singers, Record, Mix & Master the thing to Perfection with an Incredible Producer, an A1 Arranger and the Engineer who just worked with Bey. Place Our New Ditty Into Our Upcoming Showcase and Watch Our Fans Confirm Our Suspicions that THIS Song Sings Itself! Then GIVE IT AWAY To Spotify! Don't Expect Much. We'll Top A Chart or Three. We'll Get A Few New Interviews and a Couple More Gigs. We'll Open for One or Two Top Acts that We Have Always Wanted To and that's All Good! Congratulations! But After All The Money We've Spent Recording & Touring, We Won't Even Get a mere $0.50 cents per stream, not because We Don't Deserve To, But Because Someone Else Said So. See, That's The Way The System Works. Smile!
Don't Try To Break Out of It...Or Else!