Streaming services actually pay out roughly the same % of users’ subscription fees, so switching services isn’t going to magically create more revenue for musicians. If you really care about artists the #1 most impactful thing you can do is spend more money.
This is not meant in defense of Spotify. I personally subscribe to a different service. I’ve just worked in music streaming for a decade, so I know what licensing negotiations with labels and distributors look like, how royalties get split, the business challenges for DSPs, etc.
Key advice: be more intentional about what you listen to and spend more on the artists you love.
Yes true true, the payouts are not majorly different (though there are some who out perform Spotify who is the worst). The article was tabulating up the other factors that make Spotify I particular a yuck player (fake tracks, lower audio quality, etc). Individuals are also so squeezed that the solution can’t be to put the whole burden on working people to support artists either, there has to be a system that values the art and culture we want to have - a system the rewards artists for making good art that enriches our lives and moves culture forward.
Thanks. I let my Spotify Premium lapse and they'll never get another cent from me. Currently using YouTube Music free trial and even it is preferable to the Spot.
I will be the first to happily dance on Spotify's grave, but claiming that everybody can hear the difference between a 320kbps Ogg Vorbis (which is what Spotify uses) and uncompressed audio is not true.
There have been some public blind tests where some very few people can hear a tiny difference from a 320kbps MP3, but this requires A/B-testing tracks multiple times with concentration, knowing which minute details to listen to, and good equipment. Young ears also help :-) And Ogg Vorbis is a higher quality codec. Even 160kpbs Ogg Vorbis is very close to transparent for human ears.
What I personally believe may be going on here:
- You may have normalization on in Spotify's settings. Turn it off. It may change the audio's dynamics. (Loud peaks are quieter, quiet parts are louder. This processing can also create some minor artifacts.)
- There is a volume difference between the two sources. Louder volume makes everything sound better. Ask any audio/mix engineer. (This is why everything is so compressed.)
- The services are using different masters.
- There is some additional sound processing (EQ) going on to make the other sound "better".
- You are not doing a blind test. Placebo effect is very strong and it works even when you know it's a placebo effect. If you know which source you're listening to, it is pretty much impossible for the human brain to ignore that information. Hearing is a complicated brain process, just like the other senses. An audio plugin that visually looks like the vintage gear it emulates sounds "warmer" and more "analog" than an objectively identical sounding plugin with a brutal-looking digital UI.
Soon Spotify will also probably offer lossless audio. In my opinion, this is actually worse, because it will require much more resources to run those servers for practically no benefit.
And frankly… even though I have good audio equipment and a home studio, the song is always more important. After a certain base level of audio quality, if you find yourself listening to the audio quality instead of the song, the song probably sucks :-)
I appreciate your technical insights. While I understand the science behind blind tests showing most people can't consistently identify differences between compressed and uncompressed audio, what I describe is my personal lived experience, not a scientific approach. My personal preference ended up being Qobuz - after testing and fiddling with all three services (Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz).
You raise excellent points about potential factors that could influence perception - normalization settings, volume differences, different masters, and the powerful placebo effect. I've actually experimented with turning off normalization and controlling for volume, yet still perceive a richer feel when listening to Qobuz. All in my head? Ok, sure, maybe.
Your point about different masters is particularly insightful - Qobuz uses different high-resolution masters than Spotify, which could explain much of what I'm hearing. This isn't just about compression but about different source materials. And I prefer it for many of the songs I listened to.
As a songwriter and producer myself, every sonic decision in studio work is intentional, creating a specific audio world. When those nuances don't translate in a mix, it affects the artistic vision.
My preference for Qobuz over Spotify and Tidal isn't about objective technical superiority - it's about which service best delivers the music as I want to experience it. For my ears, my equipment, and my musical priorities, I find Qobuz High Res more satisfying, even if that's inconvenient for my workflow or wallet. Call it placebo if you want! I'm okay with that :)
I appreciate the conversation about audio quality - the truth is many listeners are not as concerned with the audio quality issue as audiophiles like to think... I think Neil Young did a pretty good job proving that to the world! But these discussions help all of us think more deeply about how we experience music and what matters most in that experience.
Yes, I'm definitely not trying to invalidate anybody's experience :-) If you hear a difference, then you hear a difference. Just saying that in my opinion, it's very unlikely (but not impossible) that it's specifically the compression that's causing it.
I'm personally just not a fan of the "hires" advertising, because it's yet another product that they're trying to sell us, and in my opinion the advertising is not completely honest. That's why discussion is great! Soon it will be possible to give Spotify even more money when they get their non-lossy streaming going. And we'll be also heating up the planet a bit more.
It just occurred to me that I guess it's also possible there's some kind of extra processing going on *before* Spotify encodes the files. They might compress them a bit (meaning dynamics) already at that phase, who knows…
You can probably guess my opinion about Neil Young's claims :-D And yeah, people in general just don't pay attention to sound quality that much, they listen to the music. When we're watching tv with my wife, she can't even notice if I've turned the big speakers and sub on or not :-) (Granted, it's an old tv from back when they still had space for decent speakers, but still…)
In any case, whatever makes you give more money to artists instead of Spotify is a win in my books :-) I always buy albums I like from Bandcamp when possible.
BTW, there is this old very well made A/B test you can try yourself. Unfortunately only the first track worked for me, don't know if it's just my setup or if it's broken. (I could not detect any difference from that one track, using Sennheiser HD 650s and trying hard to listen to the usual giveaways like hihats and cymbals.)
I just love talking about this stuff. I fully agree with the warming the planet issue, for sure, that seems to be a rising issue with the amount of data centers needed to run all this crazy AI. Obviously you love music and sound a ton- talking about turning woofers on in the living room brought me back to my childhood and my dad doing all sorts of tweaks to get it just right, the stereo system was an elaborate ritual. My first car, a Honda CRX, had a subwoofer the size of the trunk in the back! I love loud music, so yeah, Qobuz may have gotten me there :)
I am just reading the first few pages and It already strikes me. Please see what WEATNU is doing to tear down the norms of the modern industry that is just repacked for the age we live in. https://magazine.weatnurecords.com/2025/04/17/we-are-the-new-underground/ Our movement is anti-corp and has been for 10 long years. I formed We are the New Underground those years ago because of EDM and how it was swamping experimental music and indie artists. Just like that, and those days we continue to fight against it at all odds. We are Radio | Label | Magazine - We are the New Underground
The bummer about Pandora is that they pay a fraction of what even Spotify does and give very little control to artists over their music on the platform :(
That is a total bummer. The truth is I simply cannot afford most other streaming options, and I mostly left Spotify because I did not like its algorithm. I’ll have to do more research into options that are feasible for me. But for now, Pandora has been the best option. Perhaps I will consider Apple Music. But again, I’ve loved Pandora’s student pricing and algorithm. It’s helped me discover so much cool music.
Though I would also like to put this out there: make use of your public libraries. I’m not sure about how this relates to how artists get paid or not, so that’s a caveat. But public libraries will likely have cds for you to borrow and streaming apps (like Hoopla) where you can borrow songs or albums for a couple weeks at a time.
These writers seem to remember a past that didn’t exist. Most musicians (like actors and other artists) never made much money and had to work other jobs to survive. 20k to record an album is minuscule by historical standards. Just because you call yourself and think of yourself as an artist it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be commercially successful, just like it didn’t mean that in the past.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You raise a valid historical point - many musicians have indeed always needed multiple income streams to survive, and not everyone who creates music will find commercial success. We discussed this reality during our live chat as well.
However, the concern today isn't just about who gets to make a living in music, but rather the unprecedented and growing disparity between those at the top of the industry and the creators who fuel it. When platform executives earning hundreds of millions annually suggest that "making content is free" while simultaneously diminishing artists' revenue streams, it represents more than just market forces at work.
The solution is certainly nuanced and complex - not every person who makes music will or should earn a full-time living from it. But the extreme imbalance we're witnessing sends a troubling cultural message: that we collectively devalue creative work while enriching those who build businesses on that creativity. This disparity deserves serious examination even if we acknowledge that artistic success has always been difficult to achieve.
Thank you for this, so grateful for the time and energy in getting this together, I’m appalled at so much of how streaming works against smaller artists
Thanks to Ted for the cross post and your breakdown of the different options, I just dumped Spotify. Did a side by side comparison to Tidal and immediately decided to switch.
Right on! Tidal has some cool options for making video playlists that is interesting and fun, if you’ve ever enjoyed doing that on YouTube you can do some of it on Tidal.
Great post. One small extra suggestion for the community: support your local record store as well as your local artists. As all of the music writers know here on Substack, a healthy music ecosystem takes a community of people exchanging ideas and reacting creatively to one another. Your local record store (ahem, the original Spotify) is an essential node.
The original node!! Heck yes, record stores are often holding a lot of the in person experiences that can connect people to offline connections too, beyond buying music.
A patreon style system that lets people pay artists directly for their music. Have a minimum contribution amount, say a few $$.
Be transparent with what % you take to support the service and how much goes to the artist.
Ensure you support as many currencies as possible, (not just USD & EU).
This will never happen but, somehow work with the streaming services to link directly to the artist. That’s a total pipe dream… maybe less evil services like Tidal or Qobuz would be open to that.
The key is to minimise friction for people to contribute.
The idea that indie or small = good seems to be an unquestioned assumption.
This is so comprehensive, thank you.
So welcome 🩷
Streaming services actually pay out roughly the same % of users’ subscription fees, so switching services isn’t going to magically create more revenue for musicians. If you really care about artists the #1 most impactful thing you can do is spend more money.
This is not meant in defense of Spotify. I personally subscribe to a different service. I’ve just worked in music streaming for a decade, so I know what licensing negotiations with labels and distributors look like, how royalties get split, the business challenges for DSPs, etc.
Key advice: be more intentional about what you listen to and spend more on the artists you love.
Yes true true, the payouts are not majorly different (though there are some who out perform Spotify who is the worst). The article was tabulating up the other factors that make Spotify I particular a yuck player (fake tracks, lower audio quality, etc). Individuals are also so squeezed that the solution can’t be to put the whole burden on working people to support artists either, there has to be a system that values the art and culture we want to have - a system the rewards artists for making good art that enriches our lives and moves culture forward.
Doppler is fantastic for music files on iOS. Oh, and there's a Mac app too.
https://brushedtype.co/doppler/
Doppler is my choice too for playing my Bandcamp downloads 👍
Also trying to buy at least one CD or vinyl per month despite my lack of spending power.
It's interesting when you can only pick one item, what ends up being the album you really want in your collection, right?
Rick Beato called this having "sweat equity" in your music. Like, having the experience of needing to save up to buy specific albums as a teen
Haha yes! Good ol’ Rick
Thanks. I let my Spotify Premium lapse and they'll never get another cent from me. Currently using YouTube Music free trial and even it is preferable to the Spot.
I will be the first to happily dance on Spotify's grave, but claiming that everybody can hear the difference between a 320kbps Ogg Vorbis (which is what Spotify uses) and uncompressed audio is not true.
There have been some public blind tests where some very few people can hear a tiny difference from a 320kbps MP3, but this requires A/B-testing tracks multiple times with concentration, knowing which minute details to listen to, and good equipment. Young ears also help :-) And Ogg Vorbis is a higher quality codec. Even 160kpbs Ogg Vorbis is very close to transparent for human ears.
What I personally believe may be going on here:
- You may have normalization on in Spotify's settings. Turn it off. It may change the audio's dynamics. (Loud peaks are quieter, quiet parts are louder. This processing can also create some minor artifacts.)
- There is a volume difference between the two sources. Louder volume makes everything sound better. Ask any audio/mix engineer. (This is why everything is so compressed.)
- The services are using different masters.
- There is some additional sound processing (EQ) going on to make the other sound "better".
- You are not doing a blind test. Placebo effect is very strong and it works even when you know it's a placebo effect. If you know which source you're listening to, it is pretty much impossible for the human brain to ignore that information. Hearing is a complicated brain process, just like the other senses. An audio plugin that visually looks like the vintage gear it emulates sounds "warmer" and more "analog" than an objectively identical sounding plugin with a brutal-looking digital UI.
Soon Spotify will also probably offer lossless audio. In my opinion, this is actually worse, because it will require much more resources to run those servers for practically no benefit.
And frankly… even though I have good audio equipment and a home studio, the song is always more important. After a certain base level of audio quality, if you find yourself listening to the audio quality instead of the song, the song probably sucks :-)
I appreciate your technical insights. While I understand the science behind blind tests showing most people can't consistently identify differences between compressed and uncompressed audio, what I describe is my personal lived experience, not a scientific approach. My personal preference ended up being Qobuz - after testing and fiddling with all three services (Spotify, Tidal, and Qobuz).
You raise excellent points about potential factors that could influence perception - normalization settings, volume differences, different masters, and the powerful placebo effect. I've actually experimented with turning off normalization and controlling for volume, yet still perceive a richer feel when listening to Qobuz. All in my head? Ok, sure, maybe.
Your point about different masters is particularly insightful - Qobuz uses different high-resolution masters than Spotify, which could explain much of what I'm hearing. This isn't just about compression but about different source materials. And I prefer it for many of the songs I listened to.
As a songwriter and producer myself, every sonic decision in studio work is intentional, creating a specific audio world. When those nuances don't translate in a mix, it affects the artistic vision.
My preference for Qobuz over Spotify and Tidal isn't about objective technical superiority - it's about which service best delivers the music as I want to experience it. For my ears, my equipment, and my musical priorities, I find Qobuz High Res more satisfying, even if that's inconvenient for my workflow or wallet. Call it placebo if you want! I'm okay with that :)
I appreciate the conversation about audio quality - the truth is many listeners are not as concerned with the audio quality issue as audiophiles like to think... I think Neil Young did a pretty good job proving that to the world! But these discussions help all of us think more deeply about how we experience music and what matters most in that experience.
Yes, I'm definitely not trying to invalidate anybody's experience :-) If you hear a difference, then you hear a difference. Just saying that in my opinion, it's very unlikely (but not impossible) that it's specifically the compression that's causing it.
I'm personally just not a fan of the "hires" advertising, because it's yet another product that they're trying to sell us, and in my opinion the advertising is not completely honest. That's why discussion is great! Soon it will be possible to give Spotify even more money when they get their non-lossy streaming going. And we'll be also heating up the planet a bit more.
It just occurred to me that I guess it's also possible there's some kind of extra processing going on *before* Spotify encodes the files. They might compress them a bit (meaning dynamics) already at that phase, who knows…
You can probably guess my opinion about Neil Young's claims :-D And yeah, people in general just don't pay attention to sound quality that much, they listen to the music. When we're watching tv with my wife, she can't even notice if I've turned the big speakers and sub on or not :-) (Granted, it's an old tv from back when they still had space for decent speakers, but still…)
In any case, whatever makes you give more money to artists instead of Spotify is a win in my books :-) I always buy albums I like from Bandcamp when possible.
BTW, there is this old very well made A/B test you can try yourself. Unfortunately only the first track worked for me, don't know if it's just my setup or if it's broken. (I could not detect any difference from that one track, using Sennheiser HD 650s and trying hard to listen to the usual giveaways like hihats and cymbals.)
https://abx.digitalfeed.net
Have a great day and make some great music :-)
I just love talking about this stuff. I fully agree with the warming the planet issue, for sure, that seems to be a rising issue with the amount of data centers needed to run all this crazy AI. Obviously you love music and sound a ton- talking about turning woofers on in the living room brought me back to my childhood and my dad doing all sorts of tweaks to get it just right, the stereo system was an elaborate ritual. My first car, a Honda CRX, had a subwoofer the size of the trunk in the back! I love loud music, so yeah, Qobuz may have gotten me there :)
As much as I love the idea of this article, it is way too long. But seriously, kids, buy your music. If Spotify goes under, you’ve got NADA.
It's true, if you don't own it, it's not yours.
I am just reading the first few pages and It already strikes me. Please see what WEATNU is doing to tear down the norms of the modern industry that is just repacked for the age we live in. https://magazine.weatnurecords.com/2025/04/17/we-are-the-new-underground/ Our movement is anti-corp and has been for 10 long years. I formed We are the New Underground those years ago because of EDM and how it was swamping experimental music and indie artists. Just like that, and those days we continue to fight against it at all odds. We are Radio | Label | Magazine - We are the New Underground
This is a really cool project, thanks for sharing.
completely, you're welcome.
Just about to break ground with our new sub-label EchoStation for underground dance, DnB, Dub, Deep house, house, techno, electronica music.
A couple honorable mentions:
- Ampwall is a growing competitor to Bandcamp. Super small right now, but very promising.
- Showcase is a daily music discovery app run by music lovers who hand curate everything. They're recs are always good.
Sweet! Thanks for the see Reva! I’ll check em out 🩷⚡️
I wish Pandora was listed as an option! That’s what I went to after ditching Spotify, lol.
The bummer about Pandora is that they pay a fraction of what even Spotify does and give very little control to artists over their music on the platform :(
That is a total bummer. The truth is I simply cannot afford most other streaming options, and I mostly left Spotify because I did not like its algorithm. I’ll have to do more research into options that are feasible for me. But for now, Pandora has been the best option. Perhaps I will consider Apple Music. But again, I’ve loved Pandora’s student pricing and algorithm. It’s helped me discover so much cool music.
Though I would also like to put this out there: make use of your public libraries. I’m not sure about how this relates to how artists get paid or not, so that’s a caveat. But public libraries will likely have cds for you to borrow and streaming apps (like Hoopla) where you can borrow songs or albums for a couple weeks at a time.
Yes! They are a great resource for free audiobooks!
Time to write your own post and list all the benefits and highlights of Pandora then! I'd read it!
These writers seem to remember a past that didn’t exist. Most musicians (like actors and other artists) never made much money and had to work other jobs to survive. 20k to record an album is minuscule by historical standards. Just because you call yourself and think of yourself as an artist it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be commercially successful, just like it didn’t mean that in the past.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You raise a valid historical point - many musicians have indeed always needed multiple income streams to survive, and not everyone who creates music will find commercial success. We discussed this reality during our live chat as well.
However, the concern today isn't just about who gets to make a living in music, but rather the unprecedented and growing disparity between those at the top of the industry and the creators who fuel it. When platform executives earning hundreds of millions annually suggest that "making content is free" while simultaneously diminishing artists' revenue streams, it represents more than just market forces at work.
The solution is certainly nuanced and complex - not every person who makes music will or should earn a full-time living from it. But the extreme imbalance we're witnessing sends a troubling cultural message: that we collectively devalue creative work while enriching those who build businesses on that creativity. This disparity deserves serious examination even if we acknowledge that artistic success has always been difficult to achieve.
Thank you for this, so grateful for the time and energy in getting this together, I’m appalled at so much of how streaming works against smaller artists
Thanks to Ted for the cross post and your breakdown of the different options, I just dumped Spotify. Did a side by side comparison to Tidal and immediately decided to switch.
Right on! Tidal has some cool options for making video playlists that is interesting and fun, if you’ve ever enjoyed doing that on YouTube you can do some of it on Tidal.
Great post. One small extra suggestion for the community: support your local record store as well as your local artists. As all of the music writers know here on Substack, a healthy music ecosystem takes a community of people exchanging ideas and reacting creatively to one another. Your local record store (ahem, the original Spotify) is an essential node.
The original node!! Heck yes, record stores are often holding a lot of the in person experiences that can connect people to offline connections too, beyond buying music.
\(*_*)/ Seth, Kate, Ted -
Spotify payouts are indeed crazy!
https://playlistpush.com/blog/content/images/2022/10/streaming-payouts.jpg
Years ago, that got me thinking, and I purchased song.bid
Now brainstorming ideas for it - especially something fairer for artists.
I'm technical and have a full time job, so just looking for great ideas and collaborators, not funding.
Thoughts welcome....
A patreon style system that lets people pay artists directly for their music. Have a minimum contribution amount, say a few $$.
Be transparent with what % you take to support the service and how much goes to the artist.
Ensure you support as many currencies as possible, (not just USD & EU).
This will never happen but, somehow work with the streaming services to link directly to the artist. That’s a total pipe dream… maybe less evil services like Tidal or Qobuz would be open to that.
The key is to minimise friction for people to contribute.