Re:I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack
by scarface_74 on Thursday September 04, 2025 @11:59PM
(#45134861)
Apple Music is a miniscule part of service revenue compared to App Store, payments from Google ($20 Billion a year), AppleCare, etc.
Re:I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack
by steveBK123 on Friday September 05, 2025 @02:23PM
(#45141853)
Right, and before you even get into password sharing you have stuff like this:
Apple Family Plan:
Costs $25.95 per month, includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of iCloud+ storage, and allows sharing with up to five other people
So $5.20/mo per head and you get TV, games and storage with it.
Or Spotify Family Plan - 6 Premium accounts for family members under one roof. $11.49/month
So family plans seem to discount unlimited music streaming down to $2/mo per head.
$24/year or what a single CD used to cost, before even doubling it for inflation..
Re:I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack
by micromacrofoot on Thursday September 04, 2025 @10:19PM
(#45134393)
indeed - record company exec salaries don't come out of the ether, that's money that could otherwise go in the artists' pockets
Re:I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack
by sniffers on Friday September 05, 2025 @02:28AM
(#45135546)
If I pay Spotify $20 and listen to one song one, surely they don't send that artist $14...
Re:I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack
by yladiz on Friday September 05, 2025 @08:45AM
(#45137866)
They don’t. What happens is that your listen is pooled with all listens of all songs, and every payout the artist/label gets a check for the percentage of that total listening pool. For small artists that have relatively few listens, they don’t get almost any money.
So it doesn’t matter if Spotify passes on 70%, most artists aren’t going to see any substantial portion of that, label or not.
I'm reminded of an effort a few years ago to legislate the creators getting 50% - which of course meant the "platforms" and the "labels" would collectively share only the other 50%. Which is presumably why the initiative failed.
> The three major labels - Sony, Universal and Warner Music - faced some of the toughest questioning of the inquiry, and were accused of a "lack of clarity" by MPs.
> They largely argued to maintain the status quo, saying any disruption could damage investment in new music, and resisted the idea that streaming was comparable to radio - where artists receive a 50/50 royalty split.
> "It is a narrow-margin business, so it wouldn't actually take that much to upset the so-called apple cart," said Apple Music's Elena Segal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57838473
These days Spotify has hundreds of millions for Joe Rogan and podcast investments, and Apple reports a 75% profit margin on services, so I guess it is quite profitable for everyone except the actual artists.