I wish to make some reservations about the universal reach of the streaming services. Some are better-represented than others if you consider music from non-Anglophone world, particularly the back catalogues. Record companies had a stake both in production and distribution for better or worse, streaming services only offer the latter. Furthermore without a preview window in the way radio or music tv used to work, you just have to go by tags, it's like trying to swim across an ocean without a boat, but what a particular tag supposed to mean? A tag may mean to exhibit a number of characteristics, but which ones are relevant to us that make us like that particular piece or artist? One can easily find oneself in between tags or lose sight of the sonicscapes one hasn't explored yet, relying too much on tags to identify their own taste and not liking some music for want of an introduction. So I hardly see democratization but more like drowning in numbers, a more fragmented, even tribal landscape. Without maps and guides, trial-and-error on an individual, pedestrian basis discourages engagement for people having commitments timewise. Popularity/access check is no baseline quality check, quality that needs to be ushered, improved and promoted gets drowned out by a raging sea. Of course, this state of affairs simply follows the social change in both production and distribution but some expressions like universal reach or democratization is misleading. It's always awakening to check the macro outlook as this video portrays the shape of the music industry, but the microview to music as in our lives (people who are actually making music even at an amateur capacity tend to disregard the change in the societal relevance of a social practice since they already made a commitment to music as "my thing"). In the long view, coming of the recording and broadcasting vastly improved the mass access to music carrying it beyond a religious/ritualistic framework, in turn enriching sociability, marrying the compositional complexity of court music with the relevance of the folk music to social experience. So, what happens on the ground may be not just a shrinking in musical products but the place of music in contemporary culture. Asking people their favourite artists is a way to make a conversation, literature, music, cinema had its moments (and most of plastic arts always remained luxuries rather than common delicacies [maybe one can think of woodcuts as popular products before "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction"], accordingly followed niche marketing), maybe we're moving to a place it'll be something else. When I think of how I was already a young adult whose taste was formed in a conventional way with a strong geographical bias before internet and p2p sharing, the ground rules for how to live a life changes, like a person who came of age in Belle époque and had to age through world wars.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The only thing I'll say is that unfortunately the world is not a fair place. Fairness is a wonderful ideal to strive for though, and that is what we should keep pushing (and being aware of biases)
Very interesting video...I'm sure your conclusion won't be popular amongst musicians but it's very logical. Incidentally I understand even Netflix spends much less on content as a % of revenues. I'm afraid the simple truth is that nobody is obliged to pay you more for a service than what the market is willing to bear. Thanks for putting the numbers in perspective. I never realised that the overall size of the market had shrunk so dramatically in real terms...and unfortunately, technology has evolved so much that any buffoon with a laptop can cobble together a few tracks and hawk them online. The deck is incredibly stacked against real musicians...
I think you are right and I often receive a lot of hate for examining some sacred cows, like this ones. But since I don't do this channel for the living, I enjoy being able to say what I think is intellectually honest rather than what the audience wants to hear
I wonder if it's the value that streaming has set for music. They have control over the devaluation of music. Aren't they optimizing the price for number of subscribers, which has ended up depressing what an album, or playback is worth? It's human nature to want the most for the least, and now streaming services are just letting people feel ok with it, instead of paying $20 for an album at a shop they get access to unfathomable amounts of music for ... I don't even know how much, LOL. As a rich old guy that wants to support artists directly, I always buy music of the artists' website if I can. That being said, the music industry has always treated artists terribly. Literally exploiting them, making billions while leaving them destitute. It's just that now artists have platforms like RUclips where they can directly connect to a much wider audience and expose the injustice of it all. I was a professional musician in the early 90s, and it was a bad scene even then. You could get by if you had the right personality, connections, and didn't want to be a rock star, but it was still a grind. So I got out, and am now a happy hobbiest with hard won skills from my youth. So, is Spotify evil in my mind? Well, they sure aren't doing any musians any favors. 😉
This was an informative video. I wonder if you could focus on the difference between maturation stage of globalization and late stage capitalism? Maybe contrast the point from three perspectives. Marketing, average person, and Davos on your other Chanel.
Hi Utkarsh, considering you have so many guitars, could you make a video on how to transport guitars or precautions to take while dealing with airlines 😅 . I mean for us these guitars are everything, but for airlines it's just baggage which is sad
Side Note: The new thumbnail style threw me! Almost wasn't going to watch because I didn't know it was you, but, that said, I do like the new direction!
I offer for consideration that in 1999 people were buying CDs/records (physical media) that happened to (necessarily) have music on them. I understand that the cost of the physical media represented a major portion of the cost of goods sold Top artists could get a piece of that pie. Now with streaming, there is no physical media. You are only paying for the music...
You are a 100% right about the physical nature previously. The only thing to consider is that publicly listed companies need to have/work towards a certain level of profitability. Spotify's profit of about 20% is pretty much in line with other publicly traded companies barring early stage growth stock and unicorns. One could ask why they need to keep 20% as profit, but I think that would get into questioning the very nature of capitalism. Reality is profit is a strong incentive to drive innovation. The flip side of course is extreme profit gouging which I often talk a lot about in my channel but 20% is not in that range
@@ministryofguitar Want to say that I love your channel! What if we compare Spodify's compensation versus the deals that Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty had before their lawsuits...or what Badfinger and Tommy James and the Shondells had to suffer through? It would seem that save for a fortunate few, the game has always been slanted against artists. The gatekeepers/high barrier to entry (cost to record) have been replaced with saturation of product and transparency of compensation. At least artists today are aware of what they're getting into.
@@michaelferrigno2026Now that the illusion of celebrity is dissolving, more people are going to be discouraged from pursueing creative interests that promise no benefit beyond personal fulfilment...if anything, the universal celebrities of this emerging age are politicians, which sucks because they're horrible examples of human existence
I see where you are coming from dude. The thing is though, there is the reality of a capitalist system and the system was fairly similar pre Spotify where indeed you could buy exposure through dollars. That's literally how the entire marketing industry works. The reason even Sports gets sponsored is because eyeballs and attention can be bought
I like the reality check your channel provides, your channel has become one of my favorites. Thank you
Thank you. Appreciate it
Great work, Utkarsh, as usual. I would add, it has been the commoditization of music. Your analyses are always great.
I wish to make some reservations about the universal reach of the streaming services. Some are better-represented than others if you consider music from non-Anglophone world, particularly the back catalogues. Record companies had a stake both in production and distribution for better or worse, streaming services only offer the latter. Furthermore without a preview window in the way radio or music tv used to work, you just have to go by tags, it's like trying to swim across an ocean without a boat, but what a particular tag supposed to mean? A tag may mean to exhibit a number of characteristics, but which ones are relevant to us that make us like that particular piece or artist? One can easily find oneself in between tags or lose sight of the sonicscapes one hasn't explored yet, relying too much on tags to identify their own taste and not liking some music for want of an introduction. So I hardly see democratization but more like drowning in numbers, a more fragmented, even tribal landscape. Without maps and guides, trial-and-error on an individual, pedestrian basis discourages engagement for people having commitments timewise. Popularity/access check is no baseline quality check, quality that needs to be ushered, improved and promoted gets drowned out by a raging sea. Of course, this state of affairs simply follows the social change in both production and distribution but some expressions like universal reach or democratization is misleading. It's always awakening to check the macro outlook as this video portrays the shape of the music industry, but the microview to music as in our lives (people who are actually making music even at an amateur capacity tend to disregard the change in the societal relevance of a social practice since they already made a commitment to music as "my thing"). In the long view, coming of the recording and broadcasting vastly improved the mass access to music carrying it beyond a religious/ritualistic framework, in turn enriching sociability, marrying the compositional complexity of court music with the relevance of the folk music to social experience. So, what happens on the ground may be not just a shrinking in musical products but the place of music in contemporary culture. Asking people their favourite artists is a way to make a conversation, literature, music, cinema had its moments (and most of plastic arts always remained luxuries rather than common delicacies [maybe one can think of woodcuts as popular products before "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction"], accordingly followed niche marketing), maybe we're moving to a place it'll be something else. When I think of how I was already a young adult whose taste was formed in a conventional way with a strong geographical bias before internet and p2p sharing, the ground rules for how to live a life changes, like a person who came of age in Belle époque and had to age through world wars.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The only thing I'll say is that unfortunately the world is not a fair place. Fairness is a wonderful ideal to strive for though, and that is what we should keep pushing (and being aware of biases)
Very interesting video...I'm sure your conclusion won't be popular amongst musicians but it's very logical. Incidentally I understand even Netflix spends much less on content as a % of revenues. I'm afraid the simple truth is that nobody is obliged to pay you more for a service than what the market is willing to bear. Thanks for putting the numbers in perspective. I never realised that the overall size of the market had shrunk so dramatically in real terms...and unfortunately, technology has evolved so much that any buffoon with a laptop can cobble together a few tracks and hawk them online. The deck is incredibly stacked against real musicians...
I think you are right and I often receive a lot of hate for examining some sacred cows, like this ones. But since I don't do this channel for the living, I enjoy being able to say what I think is intellectually honest rather than what the audience wants to hear
I wonder if it's the value that streaming has set for music. They have control over the devaluation of music. Aren't they optimizing the price for number of subscribers, which has ended up depressing what an album, or playback is worth?
It's human nature to want the most for the least, and now streaming services are just letting people feel ok with it, instead of paying $20 for an album at a shop they get access to unfathomable amounts of music for ... I don't even know how much, LOL. As a rich old guy that wants to support artists directly, I always buy music of the artists' website if I can.
That being said, the music industry has always treated artists terribly. Literally exploiting them, making billions while leaving them destitute. It's just that now artists have platforms like RUclips where they can directly connect to a much wider audience and expose the injustice of it all.
I was a professional musician in the early 90s, and it was a bad scene even then. You could get by if you had the right personality, connections, and didn't want to be a rock star, but it was still a grind. So I got out, and am now a happy hobbiest with hard won skills from my youth.
So, is Spotify evil in my mind? Well, they sure aren't doing any musians any favors. 😉
This was an informative video. I wonder if you could focus on the difference between maturation stage of globalization and late stage capitalism? Maybe contrast the point from three perspectives. Marketing, average person, and Davos on your other Chanel.
Thanks. A great idea. I'll need to do some research for this, but I'll definitely cover it in the future
Hi Utkarsh, considering you have so many guitars, could you make a video on how to transport guitars or precautions to take while dealing with airlines 😅 . I mean for us these guitars are everything, but for airlines it's just baggage which is sad
Yes I have a lot of experience with this. I ll make a video
Side Note: The new thumbnail style threw me! Almost wasn't going to watch because I didn't know it was you, but, that said, I do like the new direction!
A B testing. The bread and butter of the ex Marketer. Let’s see how they work out
Maybe not evil but definitely immoral
Amen. It's what they pay (or don't pay) the artists, not the streaming service itself. I give the streaming services a couple more years.
I offer for consideration that in 1999 people were buying CDs/records (physical media) that happened to (necessarily) have music on them. I understand that the cost of the physical media represented a major portion of the cost of goods sold Top artists could get a piece of that pie. Now with streaming, there is no physical media. You are only paying for the music...
You are a 100% right about the physical nature previously. The only thing to consider is that publicly listed companies need to have/work towards a certain level of profitability. Spotify's profit of about 20% is pretty much in line with other publicly traded companies barring early stage growth stock and unicorns. One could ask why they need to keep 20% as profit, but I think that would get into questioning the very nature of capitalism. Reality is profit is a strong incentive to drive innovation. The flip side of course is extreme profit gouging which I often talk a lot about in my channel but 20% is not in that range
@@ministryofguitar Want to say that I love your channel! What if we compare Spodify's compensation versus the deals that Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty had before their lawsuits...or what Badfinger and Tommy James and the Shondells had to suffer through? It would seem that save for a fortunate few, the game has always been slanted against artists. The gatekeepers/high barrier to entry (cost to record) have been replaced with saturation of product and transparency of compensation. At least artists today are aware of what they're getting into.
@@michaelferrigno2026Now that the illusion of celebrity is dissolving, more people are going to be discouraged from pursueing creative interests that promise no benefit beyond personal fulfilment...if anything, the universal celebrities of this emerging age are politicians, which sucks because they're horrible examples of human existence
I refuse to post my music to Spotify. Their "game" is rigged .... OBVIOUSLY.
YOU CAN BUY Spotify plays ... that's not fair.
I see where you are coming from dude. The thing is though, there is the reality of a capitalist system and the system was fairly similar pre Spotify where indeed you could buy exposure through dollars. That's literally how the entire marketing industry works. The reason even Sports gets sponsored is because eyeballs and attention can be bought
Programmed drums always sounds like s#i+ to me.