Should We Hate Spotify? [An Objective View From A Professional Musician]
The story of how professional musicians became tech startup assets.
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#spotify #musicindustry #musicians
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Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
0:53 – Pre-Spotify
3:16 – Spotify enters the industry
7:48 – Interesting Math and stats
10:14 – Devil’s Advocate
12:41 – A parking lot attendant with 7 million fans
@BennJordan
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Hey everyone, thanks for your input. I want to add a friendly reminder that unfortunately, with Spotify becoming a massive share of most independent musician's income, "boycotting Spotify" just punches an open wound. It'll be interesting to see what the future holds, and I do think that at some point a new union will need to be formed or (my wet dream) copyright legislation is overhauled and modernized. Most importantly, it is YOU, my fans, followers, listeners, and even pirates, who make it possible for me to do what I do. The music industry will always change, but listeners and musicians will always be glued together through those changes. ❤
@michyyy223
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Just here for this comment:
Yes yea without a doubt
@markellis4880
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Love your work Benn.
@Dyskoala
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
@bennjordan you briefly covered your cut of the split, & how you bought back your licensing rights to your music. Can you release a video on this topic more? Do you feel owning your publishing rights increases revenue paid out through streaming? What can artists do to better navigate the streaming paywall? Especially with the changes Spotify announced this year (or last?) with how they will model the flow of money to artists? this is a very insightful video, thank you for sharing. And to answer your question; $25k / yr is livable in 1995, their valuation of your contribution is 30 years out of date. Where is the musicians union fighting on behalf of creators like yourself? (Is there such a thing? Gotta go down a Google rabbit hole now. )
@ramspencer5492
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Absolutely…. Especially now. Just switch. If you must do a streaming one do one that's not quite as evil
@TheMagicktony
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
They can’t pay more, I live and compose,play without Spotify what was there before Spotify albums sale CD, records, if everyone of no significant takes there music off, the masses will bored to hell, with nothing new, just the same, ,Madonna, Taylor swift, and that’s it, the masses have the control, I own my masters.
@BrentLeVasseur
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
You should look at Joseph Schumpeter’s economic model of creative destruction. It describes what’s happening perfectly.
@CommonSenseTipsAndTricks
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Short of the answer, YES! Spotify is nobody's friend! Unless you're willing to chuck out a lot of money! I am an artist on Spotify. You would not believe the things this platform does! They actually use artists who are new and have good material to boost those who pay to promote! They have ways of holding us back too! But with confidence, fortitude and tenacity, it is possible to overcome all of those obstacles. And reach a somewhat respectable presence! It takes diligence, time, faith and few prayers will help too! I could cover a lot of reasons how Spotify uses the tricks they do. But here is one example. I'm a Christian who writes Christian songs. No apologies for that. About 3 years ago, I got my music to Spotify. I was excited and I sent links to my songs on Spotify to my friends. Back then, instead of my friends finding links to my songs, they first were forced to hear Spotify's preferred choices. That's not so bad. But A Christian artists does not want his friends to hear urban music with sexually explicit lyrics to people he is trying to inspire! Unless the receiver of the link had a paid membership, that's what they got! You can not even skip a song done in such distaste. This happened with some of my friends on many occasions! I even tested it myself because I could not believe what they told me! I even had people get angry about it at Spotify and at me! Well they have cleaned up their act a little bit since then. But they do other things just as bad!
@KillinCat
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Sorry if this is on the wrong video, I've been having you in the background whilst I entertain my toddler, buuuuut
I really like how you've covered this applies to the tech industry as a whole. I'm a gamedev and while I only have one game under my belt, I've noticed a steady erosion of payment rights and payouts in just my first few years. I was lucky, I wasn't too hurt by this, but it's still visibly there even to me as a relative novice. The entire tech industry that encompasses the artistic fields is moving this way to some extent and it's quite frankly terrifying, though it is also relieving to see other people see it.
@george-broughton
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I'd give you an answer, but it appears my comments are being deleted.
@frankhaugen
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Why are there middlemen? If artists were paid directly, no problem
@DannyGadish
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Yes, without a doubt
@touristtam
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Never liked Spotify. Never worked for me. I’m still waiting for a plain digital locker.
@44Hd22
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
10:38 That makes a lot of sense.
14:31 I guess it implies that your job legally or economically contributes the same resources as a parking lot attendant but you make art and the art aspect doesn’t get paid. Just statistics, not how much your listeners enjoyed the music. That makes a difference because it probably kept at least a few of them on Spotify. Then that music inspired them and gave them irreplaceable positive energy. It’s just not really feasible that we are going to develop a system that measures this ethically and accurately. Anyone could design such a system but it requires companies to let an organisation monitor everyone who listens to their music and then they gotta pay as much money to the artists as the organisation says and the organisation has to not store, use or sell that data.
@44Hd22
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Our society doesn’t value art enough. It’s just that people who prioritise resources and stuff are more successful and powerful than people who don’t.
@dudarino666
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I was recently watching a video on how the US treasury and Federal Reserve were selling gold underprice to the market to essentially devalue it to the point where owning "US Dollars" was the better investment. I feel this is what Spotify is doing. I wonder if its not funded by other big music label so that music becomes devalued and they maintain more of the profits in general. I dont know what the long term goal is, but it feels almost orchestrated to be so popular, while doing so much damage.
@imwaiting
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
really good thoughts, this feels even more relevant today. i've been thinking about this issue so much this year. would love to see a followup this year!
@BionicTapeworm
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
What would a music download/listening service cooperatively owned & run by musicians look like?
@demesisx
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
YES.
@Obscurity202
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Probably gonna go be a parking lot attendant tbh
@JINX_ZIRS
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
To the complexity of social media and streaming as a whole I really want to share my experimental music process more than anything. I like community over everything
@flaviofilmsdirector
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Let's do the following. Let's build our website. Sell our digital downloads directly there. No intermediaries. Let's leave discoverability to social media.
@ADDA710
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Love your honesty. I hope we can meet someday . Youre quickly becoming my favorite human.. if you are human 👽 👾 👽
@clayirwinmusic1962
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
spotify big scam
@WilliamMitchell-sc3fe
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Yeah I think we should hate, better yet despise Spotify!
@ZethKeeper
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I don't hate it (although your most recent video about PSA made me concerned), but realistically, if you don't have enough budget to promote your music, like I do, you shouldn't even bother to get it to streaming platforms. Because why in the world would I pay for a service that puts it there first, and then to some PR and social media agent for promotion if chances of people liking it so it is worth it are very low? That's just a waste of money, IMO. I see uploading it to torrents like you did back in the day and Bandcamp more viable.
@Snicker60515
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I would love to see an update for 2025 as to how 2024 went for Benn in terms of streaming income, since he did mention in this video how his income from that source would be going down.
I for one hate Spotify! Never liked their interface. All I want from my streaming service is to choose an artist and listen to a "radio station" of theirs and other artists like them and to be able to access albums of any artist I feel like listening to that day. Pandora got me hooked on the "radio" and Google Play Music got me hooked on the album side of the equation. I still pay Pandora to this day for the service because it's been dependable, but YouTube Music is a lesser version of how glorious GPM was. I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PLAYLISTS! I just want a shuffle! Thank you!
@parkervarin
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I would pay double what I currently pay for Spotify if it meant that artists got paid better. Spotify is an insanely valuable resource. Since I started using it, my music tastes have expanded so much. I can confidently say I listen to just about every genre out there now and that's because Spotify lets me listen to anything and everything in one place.
Its algorithm has shown me so many artists I would've never known about if it wasn't for them. I then go to see their live shows if they're in town and I really like them. I would've never seen some bands live if it wasn't for Spotify's algorithm.
@christheghostwriter
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
I had a Spotify account early on, but once YT Premium (initially called YT Red) became available, I ditched Spotify. Premium comes with YT Music as a standalone app, so between the main YT platform and YT Music, I have YT on 24/7.
I listen to music all day, and fall asleep to audiobooks, lectures, and podcasts at night.
I don't know if YT is any better for artists than Spotify, but as the user, I love it. I am constantly baffled by the fact that people still watch ad-supported YT. You're paying for YT one way or another, either with your money or your time. Since YT Premium is about $15 a month, I consider it a bargain for the enjoyment I get out of it. I could sit through hours of ads each month, but my time is way more valuable than $15 an hour, so I'm much happier paying for premium than sitting through ads.
Plus, it's my understanding that creators get a slightly larger payout from premium watchers than ad-supported watchers, so that's good too.
@StoneyGround-zs8oh
October 2, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Love the house analogy, my place is levelled 🥹😂
Comments are closed.