Spotify CEO Daniel Ek touched the collective nerve of the music world by saying it costs almost nothing to make "content"
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sparked an online backlash after a social media post in which he said the cost of creating "content" is "close to zero".
The boss of the streaming giant said in a post on X: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.
"While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.
"Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?"
Music fans and musicians were quick to call Ek out, with one user, composer Tim Prebble, saying: "Music will still be valued in a hundred years. Spotify won't. It will only be remembered as a bad example of a parasitic tool for extracting value from other peoples music. (or "content" as some grifters like to call it)."
Musicians weighed in too, with Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler saying: "Fuck off you out of touch billionaire."
I don't like that all art is just "content." I can believe that the cost of creating "content" really is near-zero, but "content" isn't the kind of music I look for. I spend effort trying to appreciate the craft and understand it, so "content" kind of defeats the point.
I literally just cancelled my membership with that shitty company yesterday! It sucks, I've used it daily for almost a decade, but I just can't really deal with my money going to such publicly malicious and stupid executives any more. They can't just not be arseholes for like two seconds.
Anyway, I need some alternative... Does anybody use anything else that they prefer? 👀🤞
Maybe he's thinking about their darling, Joe Rogan, whose main cost at this point is probably enough weed for him and his staff and his guests on the regular while he just talks about stupid shit that he thinks makes him sound smart but really doesn't.
So the cost of making that content is close to zero. Unless, of course, you count the $250 million they paid him already...
I will keep repeating this over and over: Spotify hates artists. This douchebag CEO pays himself hundreds of millions for storing other's music on a server, but thinks musicians are such losers they don't deserved nothing. Fuck modern Internet, and fuck you especially Daniel. Your time is worth 15k a minute, but musicians should work for free so you have a "product" to sell? Fuck you loser, I will always be superior to you because unlike you, I can create things. You need me, I don't need you.
While I get the desire for outrage and backlash, a generous reading of what he said would be something like "In the past, making music meant needing access to numerous instruments and equipment. Today, you can create the same kind of music with a cheap PC and some programs."
He's not attacking creativity or saying your time isn't valuable. He's saying the barrier to entry has dropped dramatically to the point that almost anyone that wants to create content, can.
Look at any medium and notice the wide array of tools now available to the average person. You can do Photoshop and video effects using entirely free programs for the most part. Or paying a fraction of what you'd have paid in the past for less features.
Under that reading, he's absolutely correct.
But yeah, Spotify sucks, I get that. They don't pay creators fairly. Absolutely. Don't disagree with that.
I guess I don't understand his point. Is he saying that making content is cheap (it's not) so artists don't need to be paid a lot? If content creation is cheap, why are they not the ones producing the music? It should be cheap for them to be their own label, right?
But shit, you would think the CEO of a company whose main product is streaming content would have some idea of the cost to produce that content. Recording studios do not exactly grow on trees and it's not like audio engineers are working for free. I guess I don't understand why he is paid so much since being an executive at a company does not require much expense.
The problem all around, IMO, is just how extremely broad the term content is. Content can be a complex hour-long video on a subject with amazing editing, or a beautiful piece of artwork, but it can also be a quick selfie at a club or any given platform's equivalent of shitposting.
I mean, sure... I can pump out music all day every day and it cost me nothing to make.
It's not gonna be good music though. It's literally just going to be random notes and loops with no lyrics or actual instruments being recorded, strung together in a way that doesn't cause your ears to bleed. Hopefully.
But hey, if that's what Ek wants, he should make me an offer. 🤷🏻♂️
The value you provide to the world of music is less than zero, in fact it's a debt to society you will never repay, congratulations on the proof of concept that stealing can be both legal and profitable though.
Music Production used to require expensive equipment and a dedicated studio. Now anyone with a few hundred dollars can make quality musical recordings in their living room. The monetary cost of creating musical content is extremely low compared to all previous eras of the music industry.
The issue here is that he is making an argument for raising costs while cutting artist revenue by making music appear to have little to no value. This is an extremely poor decision, since most people who enjoy music don't equate the value of the music they are listening to with the monetary cost it took to make it. It's also a crazy argument to devalue your product while raising prices.
Given that Spotify lines its pockets by shoving music from the highest bidder down their customer's throats (As everyone unwittingly listening to "Espresso" has surely learned over the past month), they clearly don't care about the small players getting exposure.
If you care about small artists, quit Spotify and start using Soundcloud and Bandcamp. Actually discover small artists instead of relying on the largest corporate music algorithm on the planet to spoon-feed you.
Every picture of Daniel Ek looks like an evil henchman thinking he's about to deliver good news to his boss, with the stinger being the boss is about tell him that he has completely fucked up.
Content can cost nothing, if you're talking a podcast made in your bedroom. You get fleeced when putting it on streaming services though, as far as I know there is no free way of getting your stuff on Spotify, as you need to pay an aggregator (a middleman rent seeker that we don't complain about enough) to do so.
Oshit TIL I only spent money on my album because I'm a dumbass. If I were smart and produced it for free, I could have a whole $10 of net Spotify revenue.
I'm starting to look for alternatives. Do y'all have any recommendations? I'm looking into Deezer, but was wondering if there were better more artist friendly services?
“… what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?”
Well, there’s very little chance of memorable art to come into existence if artists are not paid fairly. Art takes time and effort, even for geniuses. If someone’s worried about becoming homeless or whatever, they’re not going to focus on their craft at the expense of health and safety, and even if they do what they produce will be suboptimal or unfocused.
So what’s the fair value of such things? I suppose there’s a number of ways to determine that, but it doesn’t matter if the platform that’s hosting an artist is not acting in good faith nor practicing fairness. Really, there should be an open source version of Spotify.
Seems like every time I look at internet companies the first thing that comes to mind is why is the labor not forming a collective?
If the artists owned the distribution via a artists collective at least the profits would be split up in some more fair fashion.
Same with food delivery.
Same with Video production and delivery (peer to peer with each creator adding a node if you want to go that route).
Same with car driving services
and so on.
Edit: i never thought that I would get a downvote on lemmy for suggesting maximum money and ownership in a product by the authors but here we are, lol!
But to be fair, with all the no quality garbage published on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, the possibility to generate music with suno -- the cost is close to zero.
Quality content in the other hand, do cost money and the creators should be better compensated.