Some More Thoughts on Streaming

So, I shared my blog post about "Bandcamp not Spotify" with some friends who are in high finance and venture capital. And one of them really didn't like it. He is convinced that streaming is much better for all involved parties, especially him as a consumer who gets a nearly endless supply of practically free music on Spotify and AppleMusic. He is basically missing my point that if, as a fan, you really like a singer or band's music, you should support them more authentically by purchasing a digital product or even the physical form, for which the artist receives a much better payout.

Being a finance guy, and also someone under the age of forty, he can't understand why I can't agree that it's much better for the artist to have endless streaming fees for perpetuity, as opposed to the consumer buying the LP one time for $15.99 or the song (via the iTunes/Bandcamp model) for $0.99. He gets into all sort of finance theory terms talking about projection and .... blah, blah, blah. And I am unable to convince him that a band would rather have tens of thousands of fans buy a product and give them a large sum up front than to depend on millions of fans occasionally streaming the song for $0.0028 a listen over several years.

By the way, the artists and musicians I've heard from agree with my take, even as they acknowledge the reality of streaming and concede its benefits -- specifically the extended reach and exposure that wasn't possible before streaming. That said, we all know that while a million streams sounds impressive, that only earns the artist about $3000, and that would be divided among all band members. But, if a million or tens of millions of streams were instead the sale of ten to fifty thousand albums or CDs or digital downloads at $15, the artist would be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The point is that the finance guys are not creators or producers. They don't make anything, so they can't really appreciate the value of the labor. And they like getting stuff cheap. And my original point is that if you really like an artist, you can support them by buying the product for real dollars, rather than just renting it for microscopic portions of a penny at a time.

Tip your servers, and pay your artists.