Recent news revealed that Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek has been investing heavily in military tech companies, which adds another ethical layer to a platform already criticized for how little it pays musicians !
Spotify only pays artists about $3–5 per 1,000 streams, using a pro-rata model that directs most money toward major stars… By contrast, Qobuz (≈$18–20 per 1,000 streams) and Tidal (≈$12–13) pay far more fairly!
However Tidal is far from ethical. Most of its revenue is controlled by private investors and founders and small artists still earn very little…
More fair-minded platforms like Bandcamp, Resonate, Ampled, or SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties prioritize musicians over investors.
With these more ethical alternatives available, why do we keep using Spotify?
I use CDs, Records and occasionally bandcamp - usually just for a free listen before I go to their concerts and buy from them there.
But just to be clear I also buy a lot of used records and cds; which I think can be seen as similarly immoral. Evil used record stores hoarding all the margin and never compensating the original artists. Again if they’re any good and ever play nearby, they’ll get a ticket sale and maybe I’ll by a record direct from them if they do a good show.
Mostly I only care about the morality for small/new/unpopular bands, first few albums and so on.
I couldn’t give a shit about compensating large successful artists like the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan - or more accurately, whoever they sold their catalogue rights to.