this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
608 points (97.9% liked)

News

23259 readers
3235 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sparked an online backlash after a social media post in which he said the cost of creating "content" is "close to zero".

The boss of the streaming giant said in a post on X: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.

"While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.

"Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?"

Music fans and musicians were quick to call Ek out, with one user, composer Tim Prebble, saying: "Music will still be valued in a hundred years. Spotify won't. It will only be remembered as a bad example of a parasitic tool for extracting value from other peoples music. (or "content" as some grifters like to call it)."

Musicians weighed in too, with Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler saying: "Fuck off you out of touch billionaire."

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 239 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Music costs nothing if you don’t pay musicians.

[–] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 50 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] Cosmos7349@lemmy.world 17 points 5 months ago
[–] Guntrigger@sopuli.xyz 113 points 5 months ago (2 children)

"Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?"

Certainly not your vapid tweets, mate.

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 39 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Musicians are remembered for hundreds of years.

CEOs are not.

[–] Tikiporch@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

CEOs haven't been a thing for hundreds of years, but many come to mind for most folks. In fact, I'd wager most can probably name more "CEOs" from the 19th century than they could musicians. Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Ford. Some say they were Captains of Industry, others may, more accurately say Robber Barons. Good or bad, we remember them.

[–] yardy_sardley@lemmy.ca 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's not really a fair comparison. Robber barons got to build statues and skyscrapers as testaments to their own vanity, meanwhile recorded music was still in the process of being invented. Even so, I'll make the point that names like Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky are equally as recognizable.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dditty@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

If he doesn't believe current music will stand the test of time, he's in the wrong industry

[–] Skelectus@suppo.fi 84 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I don't like that all art is just "content." I can believe that the cost of creating "content" really is near-zero, but "content" isn't the kind of music I look for. I spend effort trying to appreciate the craft and understand it, so "content" kind of defeats the point.

[–] ignirtoq@fedia.io 42 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I find the very term "content" fascinating, because the exact definition you choose puts it on a kind of spectrum with "useful" at one end and "measurable" at the other.

When Daniel Ek talks about "content," he means any pile of bits he can package up, shove in front of people, and stuff with ads. From that definition, making "content" is super cheap. I can record myself literally screaming for 30 seconds into the microphone already in my laptop and upload it using the internet connection I already have. Is it worth consuming? No, but I'll get to that. And content under that definition is very measurable in many senses, like file size, duration, and (important to him) number of hours people stream it (and can inject ads into). But from this view, all "content" is interchangable and equal, so it's not a very useful definition, because some content is extremely popular and is consumed heavily, while other content is not consumed at all. From Daniel's perspective, this difference is random, enigmatic, and awe inspiring, because he can't measure it.

At the other end of the spectrum is the "useful" definition where the only "content" is good content. My 30 seconds of screaming isn't content, it's garbage. It's good content that actually brings in the ad revenue, because it's what people will put up with ads to get access to. But what I would consider good content is not what someone else would consider good content, which is what makes it much harder to measure. But we can all agree making good content is hard and thus almost always expensive (at least compared to garbage passing as content).

And that's what makes Daniel Ek look like an out of touch billionaire. The people who make good content (that makes him money) use the more useful definition, which is difficult to make and expensive and actually worth talking about, while he uses the measurable definition that's in all the graphs on his desk that summarize his revenue stream.

[–] NeptuneOrbit@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

It's a contronym at this point. "Content" is the cheapest thing to fill the screen or the sound waves. It would be like referring to the box of peanuts in ashipment as the "contents".

The stuff in the pages of a book or in a TV show is supposed to be art. Content is engineered to be as cheap as possible and as lowest common denominator appealing as possible.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 months ago (1 children)

For rich tech billionaire bros it's all the same.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] experbia@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

imo, it's a semantic attack, and it's been very effective. art, drawings, paintings, animations, movies, shows, music, poetry, books, code, games, any free human creative venture: it is all suddenly (and falsely) insinuated to only be possible when placed inside a "platform". you and I may know this isn't true, but most people could not defend against this hostile idea or simply could not identify it as such, and now falsely believe human expression is only "real" when it's inside a company's ad-filled self-reinforcing skinner box.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 months ago

I hadn't thought about it from that angle, thanks for sharing your perspective, it's really interesting

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 77 points 5 months ago (14 children)

I literally just cancelled my membership with that shitty company yesterday! It sucks, I've used it daily for almost a decade, but I just can't really deal with my money going to such publicly malicious and stupid executives any more. They can't just not be arseholes for like two seconds.

Anyway, I need some alternative... Does anybody use anything else that they prefer? 👀🤞

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 32 points 5 months ago (7 children)

I know I say this a lot but Bandcamp is very good for some usage patterns.

I buy about one album a month for $10. Over the past four years, I now have accumulated a pretty decent library of music that's mine to keep forever.

They do recommendations and articles that are (or feel like they are) written by real people.

Renting music kind of sucks.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 31 points 5 months ago

Today, 1000 times Tidal, they give more money to the artists and they lowered their prices while everyone else raised them.

[–] Oddbin@lemm.ee 28 points 5 months ago (9 children)

What, the whole Joe Rogan bullshit didn't tip you over but this did?

Tidal if you want to pay. YouTube Music with Revanced if you don't.

I absolutely cancelled after that Joe Rogan drama. I was already questioning why I needed Spotify. And seeing my subscription money go there, I bounced.

Now I'm watching more boneheaded moves and shaking my head.

[–] rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

No, this didn't. I cancelled yesterday, after reading about them just bricking one of their peripherals without offering refunds until the legal system threatened them. It's just a straw that broke the camel's back situation, rather than one big thing - the Rogan situation certainly contributed, though.

Tidal sounds like a good idea, thank you!

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Tidal turned me off by pushing that snake oil MQA format for years, although I believe they have been moving away from it in recent years.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] Senseless@feddit.de 10 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Just switched from Spotify to Tidal about 3 weeks ago. Their library is huge (even some tiny band project I once met at a festival in a german village back in 2018). They compensate the artist way better than Spotify and you can choose between different qualities up to 24 bit 192 kHz.

Prices are the same as Spotify.

Edit: If you have a paid subscription you can also import playlists from Spotify (or other common services)

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 5 points 5 months ago

It's nowhere near a full replacement to Spotify, but something that eased my switchover was Listenbrainz for open source music recommendations. It's not as good as Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists (yet!), but the greater transparency is worth it imo. I have the app from fdroid and it tracks what songs I'm listening to (especially useful if you connect it to a streaming app) and gives recommendations based on that.

[–] franklin@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I really like Deezer personally.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Yerbouti@lemmy.ml 40 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I will keep repeating this over and over: Spotify hates artists. This douchebag CEO pays himself hundreds of millions for storing other's music on a server, but thinks musicians are such losers they don't deserved nothing. Fuck modern Internet, and fuck you especially Daniel. Your time is worth 15k a minute, but musicians should work for free so you have a "product" to sell? Fuck you loser, I will always be superior to you because unlike you, I can create things. You need me, I don't need you.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 40 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Maybe he's thinking about their darling, Joe Rogan, whose main cost at this point is probably enough weed for him and his staff and his guests on the regular while he just talks about stupid shit that he thinks makes him sound smart but really doesn't.

So the cost of making that content is close to zero. Unless, of course, you count the $250 million they paid him already...

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Joe Rogan, whose main cost at this point is probably

Oh I thought you were going to say “fact checking” :p

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

No, he spends far more on weed than he does on fact checking.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago

Oh

Right he proves that every week

[–] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 7 points 5 months ago

I want to pile on Joe Rogan here but like, can I really say differently for myself?

[–] aggelalex@lemmy.world 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

He's not wrong, the cost of making content is near zero, the cost of making art is not.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Content: I strapped a camera on my face and got drunk and harassed randos in a country I’m not native to

Art: I wrote a song and played almost every instrument and also directed, shot, and edited the music video over the course of years*

[–] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Apparently time is worthless now. Who knew?

[–] Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

I’m sure the CEO doesn’t pay himself extremely well for the time he spends at spotify.

[–] fishos@lemmy.world 19 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

While I get the desire for outrage and backlash, a generous reading of what he said would be something like "In the past, making music meant needing access to numerous instruments and equipment. Today, you can create the same kind of music with a cheap PC and some programs."

He's not attacking creativity or saying your time isn't valuable. He's saying the barrier to entry has dropped dramatically to the point that almost anyone that wants to create content, can.

Look at any medium and notice the wide array of tools now available to the average person. You can do Photoshop and video effects using entirely free programs for the most part. Or paying a fraction of what you'd have paid in the past for less features.

Under that reading, he's absolutely correct.

But yeah, Spotify sucks, I get that. They don't pay creators fairly. Absolutely. Don't disagree with that.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

This feels like an out of touch comment about AI tbh. I could be wrong but it'd make all of that make slightly more sense

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 18 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I guess I don't understand his point. Is he saying that making content is cheap (it's not) so artists don't need to be paid a lot? If content creation is cheap, why are they not the ones producing the music? It should be cheap for them to be their own label, right?

But shit, you would think the CEO of a company whose main product is streaming content would have some idea of the cost to produce that content. Recording studios do not exactly grow on trees and it's not like audio engineers are working for free. I guess I don't understand why he is paid so much since being an executive at a company does not require much expense.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

As a bedroom producer who spent his children’s college money on analogue synths: go fuck yourself asshole.

[–] librejoe@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

Your kids are not going to college but at least you got some sweet synths.

[–] KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

The problem all around, IMO, is just how extremely broad the term content is. Content can be a complex hour-long video on a subject with amazing editing, or a beautiful piece of artwork, but it can also be a quick selfie at a club or any given platform's equivalent of shitposting.

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Today they announced another price hike.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, sure... I can pump out music all day every day and it cost me nothing to make.

It's not gonna be good music though. It's literally just going to be random notes and loops with no lyrics or actual instruments being recorded, strung together in a way that doesn't cause your ears to bleed. Hopefully.

But hey, if that's what Ek wants, he should make me an offer. 🤷🏻‍♂️

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] unreasonabro@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The value you provide to the world of music is less than zero, in fact it's a debt to society you will never repay, congratulations on the proof of concept that stealing can be both legal and profitable though.

[–] solsangraal@lemmy.zip 8 points 5 months ago

commence enshittification, ludicrous speed GO

[–] beefbot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 5 months ago

“Will this be on Quibi?” - Philomena Cunk

[–] todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago

Look, he's right, but he's also full of shit.

Music Production used to require expensive equipment and a dedicated studio. Now anyone with a few hundred dollars can make quality musical recordings in their living room. The monetary cost of creating musical content is extremely low compared to all previous eras of the music industry.

The issue here is that he is making an argument for raising costs while cutting artist revenue by making music appear to have little to no value. This is an extremely poor decision, since most people who enjoy music don't equate the value of the music they are listening to with the monetary cost it took to make it. It's also a crazy argument to devalue your product while raising prices.

Given that Spotify lines its pockets by shoving music from the highest bidder down their customer's throats (As everyone unwittingly listening to "Espresso" has surely learned over the past month), they clearly don't care about the small players getting exposure.

If you care about small artists, quit Spotify and start using Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Actually discover small artists instead of relying on the largest corporate music algorithm on the planet to spoon-feed you.

[–] AshMan85@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And CEOs are useless and not needed, a long with their big salaries.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›