this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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I remember reading somewhere that independent artists make basically no money from Spotify.
Is that still true, or have creators found a way to claw back value from the platform, and that's why they're defending it?
Spotify performs as one of the worst when it comes to creator royalties and appropriate pay.
It’s not THE worst, and these numbers have shifted since 2022. The general sentiment (that Spotify stiffs artists) is still shared by the general community.
Add it to the fact that, quoting from the aa's blogpost,
The vast majority of the artists are to be "stiffed" of like $3 or less per track during the nearest eternity iff every single one of their listeners is to download the archive and only listen to locally saved copies. Which, given spotify tries to do it themselves by recommending (and, likely, creating) ai slop, tells us more about their predatory practices than of anything else
This plot is complete BS, Deezer pays double than spotify.
And one of the highest payers, Qobuz, is missing
I'm always surprised that Deezer is still around. Who on earth is still using it?
Also, fuck iHeartRadio. Not for their royalties, but for buying up tons of local stations and stripping them of anything that made them even remotely worth listening to. Fuckers bought the only station in town that played any amounts of metal and turned it into yet another top 10s station
My friends and me in the family plan switched from Spotify to Tidal, but due to lack of japanese songs + vocaloid, we have hopped on Deezer instead.
I use Deezer. After Spotify started subsidizing Rogan, it was the only service that had a reasonably Spotify-like UI. Apple Music was absolutely horrible, especially for someone who already has a local library.
I used Deezer up until last month, seemed fine to me
I liked Deezer until it's redesign a few years ago. Now the design language is so ugly I could never consider paying for it. Their biggest flaw for me though is that some albums are just randomly not available in lossless and the only alternative is mp3 which I refuse to use in 2025. Some lossy codecs are great so why do Deezer and Qobuz still mess around with mp3?
This graph is weird. Soundcloud looks like it pays more according to it, but it needs to swap positions with Spotify.
What's up with soundlcouds position in that chart?
I think the point is more general about profiting from "renting" their music rather than from their labor. The fact that Spotify gives them peanuts make their position even more miserable.
This does not sound like they're defending Spotify.