this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
174 points (98.3% liked)

Technology

40417 readers
344 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] kehet@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It's the same old reason as always. Most users value their convenience more than anything.

[–] TerHu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

this is an awesome video on why other streaming services are just marginally better than spotify and not a long term solution: https://youtu.be/gDfNRWsMRsU

with that in mind i’m trying to transition away from streaming but am using tidal as what i hope is the least bad option for now.

[–] amol@communick.news 1 points 2 weeks ago

I have been using https://music.inlinestyle.it/ ( https://www.inlinestyle.it/ ). I buy albums by myself so that the full royalties go to the artist and them keep my collection there.

It's also nice to be able to listen to fediverse indie music I didn't know about.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›