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.
I'm not sure about the coins but I've been using it for a few months now and have been thoroughly enjoying the service. I think the coins are literally just their store wallet, and whether you keep some store credit there or not doesn't matter. It's equivalent to buying an iTunes gift card or something. You can just pay for whatever you want outright.