I don’t think anyone misses that. That’s all pretty obvious stuff. The issues are one step further. Why should this Spotify CEO be making that much off of the backs of the actual content creators? That’s the rub. Why is that money going there, to someone who is completely invisible to the people paying the money, rather than to the people making the content they create? Or the people making the platform they use (Spotify devs)? This is ALWAYS the problem when people say X CEO made so much compared to Y service worker.
All this broadening what you have to do to attract a fan base is diluting the point of the art. I listen to music because I like the music. The artists should get compensated for their music. Encouraging them to do other things to make their money dilutes their time and effort. That is to say, if someone’s talent is making music, let’s give them money for that, not for striking a contract with some merch vendors or whatever other hoops we want them to jump through for their food.
I’d argue though that talent is subjective of course. You said, let’s give them money for their talent, making music, but how do we quantify that? If someone write 200 songs real quick but they’re all hastily and crappily done, does that get rewarded with money if they themselves argue, hey, I’m talented, this is what I do full time, and I made more songs than other people, so I deserve more? The current way we have to quantify this is by number of streams unfortunately. That doesn’t mean of course that T Swift is more talented than that super sick jazz band you like who have all spent their entire lives being classically trained etc, but it’s what has garnered people’s interest and unfortunately that is the game as it stands today.
I don’t think anyone misses that. That’s all pretty obvious stuff. The issues are one step further. Why should this Spotify CEO be making that much off of the backs of the actual content creators? That’s the rub. Why is that money going there, to someone who is completely invisible to the people paying the money, rather than to the people making the content they create? Or the people making the platform they use (Spotify devs)? This is ALWAYS the problem when people say X CEO made so much compared to Y service worker.
All this broadening what you have to do to attract a fan base is diluting the point of the art. I listen to music because I like the music. The artists should get compensated for their music. Encouraging them to do other things to make their money dilutes their time and effort. That is to say, if someone’s talent is making music, let’s give them money for that, not for striking a contract with some merch vendors or whatever other hoops we want them to jump through for their food.
I’d argue though that talent is subjective of course. You said, let’s give them money for their talent, making music, but how do we quantify that? If someone write 200 songs real quick but they’re all hastily and crappily done, does that get rewarded with money if they themselves argue, hey, I’m talented, this is what I do full time, and I made more songs than other people, so I deserve more? The current way we have to quantify this is by number of streams unfortunately. That doesn’t mean of course that T Swift is more talented than that super sick jazz band you like who have all spent their entire lives being classically trained etc, but it’s what has garnered people’s interest and unfortunately that is the game as it stands today.