I’m not a big fan of the high fees, but I’m even less of a fan of big developers being treated differently than the little guy.
Some banks do this *** too. The more money you deposit, the less fees you pay. Because ‘premium customer’ and all this.
If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem
Agreed, but at least that is an upfront rule that technically applies to anyone with X amount of money. This is some back room handshake shit.
I’d be better if Apple / Google lowered their fees based upon how many installs anyone hit. At least it would apply to everyone, not just a couple of billionaires scratching each other’s backs.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say I think this is done to prevent anticompetitive issues. If Google were to profit off of both its own product (youtube / yt music) and also require its competitors to pay it a % of revenue, it would potentially open them up to more anticompetitive lawsuits.
They don’t do the same for ebooks with Kindle, which is why Amazon has removed the ability to buy them from the app. I’d be surprised if that was the reason for Spotify.
That got turned back on for me? Did they change it only for a few markets?
No fees when users choose to pay via Spotify (which had been the case and only option since the beginning, until User Choice Billing was implemented).
If users choose to pay with Google Play Billing, Google keeps 4%.
Even so, what I find hypocritical is that Spotify got this deal and seemingly agreed to keep it under wraps, without advocating for it to be extended to all other music streaming services in the platform.
Because… having a deal with the platform holder that gives it unfair advantage over the competition is exactly what they accuse Apple of doing with iOS.
Sauce: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23969690/google-spotify-android-billing-commission-secret-deal
4% is basically just the payment processing fee (averaged out, since it’s slightly different for every transaction). Spotify has to pay that regardless of how you pay.
Didn’t Spotify join Epic’s side in the Epic v Apple lawsuit over the app store?
deleted by creator
The game is rigged
We’re totally screwing the artist, so we’ll give you a cut if we don’t pay any gees.
Kind of weird, considering they’re a major competitor, but so what? Why is this something they need to “admit”?
Stuff like this will be used in the anti monopoly cases going on world wide.
I’m all for reigning in monopolies, but I actually don’t see how this is anticompetitive.
If you want to start a competitor to Spotify or Google music, you will have to pay those fees making it almost impossible for you to compete.
A company giving special access to it’s competition on a platform they control is usually used as an indicator of not being anticompetitive.
I hadn’t considered it from a “collusion” angle.
it would be different if it was for all it’s competition.
Eh, when Microsoft was required to ask you which browser you wanted, they didn’t need to offer every browser, just theirs, firefox and Chrome.
This could definitely be collusion, but I don’t think that not extending it to all competitiors is what makes it that.
Microsoft didn’t make the other browsers pay for the privilege of being a browser though.
How? Special back door secret deals for one and only one company is the definition of anticompetitive.
Competition is defined as more than one lol
Edit: I’m special, I am first place! But if you knew it was 1st place of one… I sure hope you think me as noncompetitive…🤣 It’s strange to me to think I’m competitive if I have no competitors.
Netflix makes heavy use of Amazon Web Services, specifically S3 Buckets. I’m sure there’s a special deal worked out with them as an anchor client.
Malls do the same thing. While they’re not in direct competition in the same sense as Google/Spotify or Amazon/Netflix, some stores don’t even pay rent in a mall because it’s expected that they’ll drive traffic to the rest of the stores. 90% sure Victoria’s Secret, Macy’s, etc are some of these anchor stores that very often pay little or negative rent due to the sheer revenue generated by other avenues.
Yea no shit, idk if it’s just for my region or what, but Spotify does not manage their subscription through the play store. Makes it more annoying to cancel it too, which the execs at Spotify probably see as a plus.
What alternatives do you guys use besides Bandcamp? I am open to paying a sub as long as the artist is getting a decent cut.
Pirate and buy official merch, they make more of that anyway. Also live shows
LiveNation has fixed the issue that artists got paid for playing live, not the companies can take that cut as well.
Are you sure “fixed” is the correct word?
buy the cd and rip them into your phone
deleted by creator
It’s pretty much one of the only ways to make sure the artist gets a half decent cut though.
Unless you want to use bandcamp, which is much easier.
deleted by creator
Bought out by EPIC, sadly… we’ll see where things go…
Not anymore, EPIC sold it to Songtradr
https://blog.bandcamp.com/2023/11/22/songtradr-acquires-bandcamp/
https://www.songtradr.com/blog/posts/songtradr-bandcamp-acquisition
I hate epic, but I also can’t tell if this is good or bad… my statement stands: we’ll see.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
the first CD i ripped was like 2 years ago
Not ideal but artists get paid proper. Just don’t share then you’re mostly fine.
P.S.: Subject to your local law which may prohibits ripping a CD. This is NOT a legal advise.
Edit: I don’t know if my statement is right or not given the downvotes. Can someone explain?
7digital has a reasonable selection, but it’s not all available lossless, which would be almost incomprehensible in 2023 if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re talking about the music industry.
Im not really sure what cut 7digital gives to artists either
Apple Music pays more than Spotify. It’s probably still not “decent”, but it’s more.
Idk if Bandcamp is better, but there I buy my beloved albums with a big tip. The only thing I dislike is many artists default to PayPal for their merch. Ah, and they got owned by someone like Tencent or Epic?
Were owned by Epic then sold to Songtradr last month
Thanks. Did you hear how it affects users like us?
As far as we know it’s business as usual but I would make sure to have a copy of everything I’ve bought if I were you, when a business gets passed around like that (and sold at a loss) it doesn’t bode well…
Yeah, right. Thanks to BC it’s so easy.
They got rid of a whole bunch of staff, so the service is effectively on life support.
Shit. Thanks you too for these news.
They are removing lots of the nice things they did like days when an the revenue goes to artists
I’m doing great with xManager so I don’t give a flying fuck about this haha
What is xManager?
I wondered this myself, so Googled it, and found https://www.xmanagerapp.com/
… And I’m still none the wiser. All I learned that it’s for Android and does… something.
Pirated Spotify premium for Android.
Search for it in Google “xManager download”
Its not a bug, its a feature. The end game has lots of backdoor deals.
deleted by creator
As someone who have distributed on all platforms, Spotify is still the best. Sure it doesn’t pay that well, but it does enable your songs to get discovered and played
This is incredibly off topic here considering the fact we’re mostly talking about Google and the company giving a market advantage to companies that could cut them some “deals”
So they don’t pay fees, they dont pay artist and they never made a Profit. But for some fucking reason are allowed to dictate the music industry.
For anyone reading this, that still uses Spotify, a big fuck you from the heart of an artist!!! You’re the reason that abominations like Spotify are able to continue…
deleted by creator
This will continue, as long as people dont stop using the products of this shitty companies. So yes, everybody who uses Spotify made the choice to give them their money, so that they can continue with this bs.
You can blame the Management or whoever as much as you want, but as long as you dont change your behaviour and stop using their products, they dont have a reason to stop.
So yes, its your fault too!
