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?
I stream with Tidal and for my favourite bands I’ll buy their music on 7digital or Bandcamp.
I’d go with Qubuz but they have this whole Qubuz Coin thing that I really don’t like. If they removed that I’d switch immediately.
Note that Tidal is owned by Black rocks funds …which make it very non-ethical platform
Yeah, unfortunately I don’t have much choice at the moment. I refuse support platforms that in my opinion have anti-consumer pricing models, and I want artists to get the most money out of my streams, so it’s a bit of a catch-22.