Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer release music only "once every 3-4 years" - <AUTHOR> https://www.thefader.com/2020/07/30/spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-says-working-musicians-can-no-longer-release-music-only-once-every-three-to-four-years <comment><USER3> I used to work in the music industry professionally, on the ground level doing booking and management. This trend has been happening slowly for nearly a decade but it's finally here. Rap and Hip Hop figured out a long time before most other genres that rapid small releases was a far better way to keep hype and sales up. Before Spotify was a thing, the shift was happening with YouTube but it wasn't as predominant. Now it's basically assumed you'll be releasing singles every month.

The music isn't your product, the music is your marketing. The shows, the merch, your influence - that's your product.

<comment><USER4> > The music isn't your product, the music is your marketing. The shows, the > merch, your influence - that's your product.

Man, that's depressing.

<comment><USER5> >> The music isn't your product, the music is your marketing. The shows, the merch, your influence - that's your product.

> Man, that's depressing.

If the CEO of an open-source company said, "Software isn't our product, software is our marketing", would you feel the same way?

<comment><USER6> It's not comparable - music is art.

<comment><USER7> The implication in your comment is that code isn't art, when code absolutely can be art. Functional things can be artistically beautiful too.

<comment><USER8> This is a really silly argument.

There is an art to building software, no doubt, in terms of it being a craft. But I think you've misspoken about functional things being artistically beautiful. What you really should mean is that functional things can be aesthetically beautiful, which is true and different.

Art is primarily defined by expression and exploration, particularly revolving around human emotions. Software products, in the end, do not fit this category. There is a vast difference.

Edit: I defined it elsewhere a bit smoother. I define art as the exploration of emotional expression. Art products are the end result of that exploration. Live acts or art or performances could be viewed as a sort of merger between the two, either as a reenactment of the exploration or as a new exploration happening in the moment.

<comment><USER9> The statement of saying someone else's view of art is objectively incorrect or silly is in itself silly. I like your proposed definition of art, but as you know everyone is free to have their own conceptions.

<comment><USER8> I can agree with that to a degree. Of course, the gut reaction to any statement is typically the more emotional one. :)

However, I find that they didn't really make a statement about how they view art, although elaboration would help. I think people are confusing things being artistic versus being aesthetic. When people say "code absolutely can be art", I find it's too generic that it does indeed become a silly statement. It dilutes what art is and is overly biased to code, especially since it's likely to be coming from a software developer.

What I really think someone means by "code can be art" is that "code can be aesthetically pleasing", the latter of which I agree with. There's also a difference between "<some thing> as an art" as in doing the thing can be an art or craft and also calling the thing art.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The way in which Spotify (and other streaming services) hurts the development of music isn't what most people say.

The problem with per-stream plays is that it is based on pop music logic: more streams equals more money. Fair!

But many recording artists made a modest living by releasing music that you might not want to listen to over and over and over. This music is often labeled 'art' or 'experimental' or whatever, and for the enthusiast, paying $15 for a record of this stuff was great.

Streaming services have no answer for this problem. It's up to something like Patreon, if anything, to fill this gap.

This is all _sorta_ fine, but what grates in me is that it seems none of the streaming providers have even thought about this. They just don't seem to be that in to music, and just think of types of pop music as representing all of music.

This is where that above quote is just a little irritating.

<comment><USER11> They could stop paying out flat per listen.

If I pay $10 and listen to 50 tracks, I want $10 (minus the provides fee) to be split among precisely those 50 tracks.

The difference is if you only listed to 50 tracks your listens are worth more that someone that diluted their listens over 5000.

Throwing everyone's fees into one big vat and dividing that according to the total listens, is bullshit. I want my favorite artist to be paid by me and I don't want to subsidize the worlds most popular artists that I never listen to.

<comment><USER12> That's your view, but artists likely hold the opposite view. I imagine they want to be paid more if more people listen to their music.

<comment><USER13> Here's an example of what some artists want: [https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Home/News/2020/Jun/An- Upda...](https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Home/News/2020/Jun/An-Update-on- the-Fix-Streaming-Campaign)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I prefer the Kanye West model in which every 8 months or so you promise to release an album on a specific date. Then that date comes and you go completely MIA, and pretend you never even announced the album. Then a few weeks later once all the hype has turned to dismay you quietly release the album and the dismay turns back into hype. Maybe that model only works if you're Kanye though.

<comment><USER15> Kanye West is a singular being. He is a human work of art, this generation's Warhol. Perhaps even more fascinating than Warhol, if less self-aware. I'm a huge fan of his brilliant public trajectory, yet I despise his music.

<comment><USER16> Interesting. I feel the exact opposite. I think he is a great artist, but I think his persona outside of the actual songs is just noise.

<comment><USER17> I used to be on your side of the camp, but now I'm both sides.

The guy just struggles with some mental health issues and isn't that great at talking to the public outside of his music. I disagree with him on some things, and he definitely has his issues, but I think he means well for the most part.

<comment><USER18> The problem is that if you're a nobody, you can say stupid things but mean well. If you're a global celebrity, when you say stupid things, there are consequences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Obviously the guy knows nothing about creativity and art.

It takes time to grow as a person and cultivate new ideas. It may not be possible to do that if you don't get in and out of whatever it is you're doing.

Imagine telling Hemingway he has to release a new blog post every week instead of a book every couple of years.

<comment><USER20> _Obviously the guy knows nothing about creativity and art._

He's not telling bands how to be successful artistically, he's telling them how to be successful financially in the modern music world.

If the band is only interested in promoting their art, they can do anything they want. If they want to earn a living too, they need to provide the market what it wants.

<comment><USER19> You think Spotify cares about artists being financially successful?

<comment><USER20> Not in general, but they do have incentive to help them to become more successful on their own platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really wish bandcamp would be bigger. Much prefer their platform. The spotify monetization cycle is so bad for music

<comment><USER22> Agreed, not just the monetization scheme but Spotify and others just push the music listening experience to playlists and singles and have very little room for albums and collecting a library of music you refer to.

<comment><USER23> I'm not a music aficionado, and I have no interest in albums. I love the singles/playlist format, and consume far more music now that I can easily ignore the 9 out of 10 songs I don't like in an album (back when CDs were still a thing).

I also find it easy to have a library of singles that I like.

<comment><USER24> Most of an album being bad as a stereotype I believe was just from actual bad artists when basically anyone could get a deal and possibly go platinum from a single song. Good artists typically had good albums

<comment><USER23> Possibly, but I think albums are only significant due to the historical medium of music requiring grouping songs together on various disks. Once it's digital, I don't see the importance of grouping certain songs together, outside of certain categories like movie soundtracks.

I guess some albums could tell some story about what the musician was feeling at some time, but that probably doesn't apply for a lot of music if not most. Certainly not the music I listen to, release it one at a time or all together, makes no difference to me.

<comment><USER25> Long suites of thematically consistent music of course predates recorded music, so I don't think you can chalk it up entirely to the recording medium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wish more people, especially tech CEOs, could understand the incredible sacrifice of time, money, and energy it takes to make an album people actually enjoy. Everything you listen to, unless you are willing to listen to raw demos, is a miracle. I've worked both as a sound engineer and and a software developer. It's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to make a hit record. The way tech companies have abused musicians to get rich is one of the most shameful things to ever happen. Furthermore, I'm sick of these guru edicts about how everyone will need to work that much harder in the "new normal". I got into software to pay the bills, but the way geeks talk about the industry and people I love drives me right up the wall. Have some appreciation--even awe--for the art you enjoy. It requires more effort than you could ever imagine.

<comment><USER27> > _It 's orders of magnitude easier to make working software than it is to > make a hit record._

That's apples-to-oranges. Obviously a "hit" _anything_ is hard in _any_ field, by definition. A hit app is just as hard (even harder, probably, since there are a lot less hit apps than hit songs).

But producing a single track? Seriously, it's not _that_ hard. Yes, it takes a team of people and a lot of creativity and skill, but I don't know what this "incredible sacrifice" or "miracle" that is "more effort than you could ever imagine" is that you're talking about. It's a creative project like any other.

But that's not even the point of the article, which is simply to release tracks piecemeal and regularly rather than in an album only occasionally. There's nothing about everyone working "that much harder".

It sounds like you had a hard time in the biz, and I'm sorry. But I don't have any clue who the "geeks" are who "talk about the industry" that seems to bother you so much, and which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article. I know a lot of software engineers who are also really into the indie music scene in Brooklyn and I think everyone does understand the work bands put into their music and their touring, and that most of the bands are never going to make it beyond attracting a few dozen or couple hundred audience members at any show, but they do it because they love it.

<comment><USER28> Not touching the whole heft of the argument, I would like to point out that the original poster didn't compare the difficulty of writing a hit song to a "hit app", he compared a creating a hit song with creating working software.

I can co-sign on this part of his premise. I worked for a music producer who has a number of #1 hits (Beyonce, Fergie, John Legend etc). He wrote >1 songs per day almost every day for over a decade.

His success ratio (hit vs placement vs nothing) was much lower than any mediocre software engineer trying to make working software over the same period of time.

It feels safe to say that in a 365 day period, a software developer can reasonably expect significantly more than one of those days to be used in 'working software' right?

<comment><USER27> But working software doesn't mean commercially successful software. It just means it runs and does something.

"Working software" would be comparable to "listenable music". I'm sure every song that producer wrote daily was _listenable_.

But even _if_ you mean "working software" as something that goes up on the app charts, top 100 in a popular category? I mean, then no -- I could easily see a developer spend an entire year building 1, 10, or even 100 apps and have none of them gain any traction at all.

<comment><USER29> The average income indifference between artists and software developers, and how many of those who make up those communities are able to find any sense of financial stability, are vastly different, so even under your logic that a "hit" is a "hit" no matter the industry, is still really misinformed and I'm sure we are all out here just doing what we are doing for the "love of it".

Speaking as a producer and developer, they are not the same things in any way and I love doing what I do deeply, thank you very much.

<comment><USER30> You're still off quite a ways in your analogy. I get paid to develop software that someone else owns and brands and makes all decisions for. For nothing more than money. It's nothing like my passion projects, which I do not get paid for at all. Most of the time. Maybe 1 in a 1000 that I will get paid for them in any meaningful way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a visual artist who regularly works on multi-year projects, and happily grabs a new album from bands she's been following for years who only put new work out once in a blue moon, I would like to cordially invite Mr. Ek to fuck himself.

While I am handing out invitations to auto-copulation, I would also like to hand out a large number to every senator and representative who has voted to defund the arts. Making room for people who have learnt creative skills to pursue their craft without having to constantly worry about whether or not this week's piece is gonna make enough money for them to pay their rent is an important part of society.

Finally, I should express my absolute delight that Patreon continues to exist, and that I have enough people willing to spare a few bucks per month that I can pay _my_ rent while continuing to work on my long, slow projects. I keep on worrying that Patreon will fall apart when it becomes clear that their burn rate is higher than their profits, but I will enjoy it while I still can. It's about the closest thing to the NEA I'm likely to experience in my adult life.

<comment><USER32> So you're engaged with your audience enough for them to sponsor you on Patreon... and you managed to miss that you're literally doing what Ek talks about? You have auto-copulated right in front of everyone...

<comment><USER31> I am, and I am not, there's a huge difference between "I am releasing one page of my long graphic novel on a regular basis" and "I am regularly producing stuff designed to stand alone as complete objects" IMHO.

<comment><USER32> That is not the only thing that he said, it was the opposite to make his previous statement more prominent.

Congratulations on being caught by the title and completely missing the whole argument.

Imagine if I came out and said: "I'm an atheist and I don't need God to tell me to treat people well, love freedom, help the needy and be a nice person... no longer can I justify killing, pillaging and raping using the word of God."

And you put all focus on "I justify killing, pillaging and raping using the word of God"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _" The artists today that are making it realize that it's about creating a continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous dialogue with your fans."_

Translation: We don't have a marketing department to handle this royal pain- in-the-ass for you, like a record company would've in the old days. Selling stuff still requires marketing though, so the people who do well are the ones who handle that part themselves, along with making the music. If you're not good at wearing all the hats at once (for example you're amazing at music and not particularly at marketing) well I guess you don't belong in the new future landscape.

Corollary: This future landscape tends naturally toward being filled with mediocre musicians who work at it part-time - almost like a moonlighting side gig to their marketing jobs.

<comment><USER32> > I guess you don't belong in the new future landscape

There's really nothing unusual in bands losing fans and appeal. If you don't want to change and loose fans - that's your choice. This isn't even new. Many artists had to recreate themselves to stay relevant or just retire.

Now - you have much cheaper and much more direct means of engaging with your audience. If you decide to ignore this - then you probably will not make a splash, but there's always a need for wedding singers and backup vocals...

<comment><USER34> > There's really nothing unusual in bands losing fans and appeal. If you don't > want to change and loose fans - that's your choice. This isn't even new. > Many artists had to recreate themselves to stay relevant or just retire.

Pretty hard to lose fans you don't have...and it's really REALLY hard to get fans

<comment><USER32> But that's work, that needs to happen. That's why Ek is saying that you can't just "release and forget for the next 4 years".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Ugh, I very much do not want musicians feeling forced to churn out more content on a set schedule. I don't get how anyone could look at the current music landscape and think that what we need is more _quantity_ , at the expense of quality. Pushing for more new content is going to encourage more derivative low effort songs, and less original ideas.

<comment><USER36> In the words of Mr. Mumble-Mouth, Curtis Jackson, "Yeah.. y'supposed to have a remix. that's how you make one hit record into two."[0]

[0][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0VMB1gN6XA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0VMB1gN6XA)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Ek claimed that a "narrative fallacy" had been created and caused music fans > to believe that Spotify doesn't pay musicians enough for streams of their > music.

Fallacy? Scores of well-known musicians, from Bette Midler to Taylor Swift, have talked about how little they make through Spotify and other streaming platforms. IIRC Swift only joined the platform after cutting a special deal. Not everyone can do this. Quoting the guitarist for Mastodon, which has a much smaller following ([https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/07/05/mastodon- guitari...](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/07/05/mastodon-guitarist- band-survive/)):

 _I could live a thousand years, and Spotify plays [our music] all day long, and maybe I'll just make a couple of thousand dollars._

Ek also said this:

> "Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this > future landscape," Ek said, "where you can't record music once every three > to four years and think that's going to be enough."

This quote reminded me of Joni Mitchell, who would take years-long breaks earlier in her career to escape from the business, work on songwriting, and recharge. Many other musicians can't, as Ek puts it, "create a continuous engagement with their fans" for reasons related to privacy, family life, finances, or mental health.

It's bad enough Spotify pays artists peanuts. But if Ek is tuning his platform to benefit only those artists who are willing to jump through Spotify's algorithmically generated hoops, and sideline everyone else, then the future of the music industry looks very dim.

<comment><USER38> How little they make, compared to what? Streaming has basically saved the music industry, finally getting revenues to go up after about 15 years of decline. Spotify pays out 70% of its revenue to labels and artists. I wonder what percentage would satisfy people.

<comment><USER39> The _industry_ revenues are up, and all of that is going to the big labels and a token handful of artists at the very top of the celebrity pile.

The vast majority of artists are still getting screwed over by the labels. They're getting a pittance, if anything.

If at all possible, always buy directly from the artists or through sites like Bandcamp that actually pay out well.

<comment><USER38> I'm not sure how Spotify is to blame for bad label deals, which are nothing new. Artists also have lots of ways to get onto Spotify and other services without a label if they wish.

Bandcamp takes only a 15% cut, which is better than Spotify's 30%, but the way people talk about it you would think there's a 10x difference or something.

<comment><USER40> > Bandcamp takes only a 15% cut, which is better than Spotify's 30%, but the > way people talk about it you would think there's a 10x difference or > something.

It's not about the relative cut of the services, but the absolute value of the payouts. On one platform you earn fractions of a cent per stream while the other allows you to collect whatever price you set for your release directly. I'm sure the latter approach is significantly better for smaller, niche artists, if not all but the most popular ones.

Or put differently: The number of plays on Spotify required to match the payout of a handful of album sales on Bandcamp is probably out of reach for most artists.

<comment><USER38> It's difficult to square that idea with the fact that streaming has caused both industry revenue to increase as well as independent share of the overall pie to increase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Artists to Spotify CEO: musicians can no longer afford to make $0.00174927 per stream.

<comment><USER42> Let's be honest. The amount Spotify/Pandora/et al pay the majority of musicians per stream is far more than they'd make selling CD's. The overwhelming majority of music is unknown, has few fans, and will never "go platinum" nor sell out stadiums - ie, most musicians are not Taylor Swift.

For all those artists... access to millions of potential listeners from around the world is an amazing advancement.

The number of artists I've discovered, personally, through Pandora's recommendation system is staggering. I'd never know about these artists in a pre-streaming world.

<comment><USER43> This might be true if Spotify's monetization was distributed fairly, but instead it's basically redistributive to the biggest players. In short, instead of splitting a person's premium payment equally among all the artists they listened to, it's split among _all_ artists on the platform. E.g. if Lady Gaga is 2% of all Spotify plays in a month, they get 2% of the money, even if you personally didn't listen to Lady Gaga at all.

<comment><USER44> Does this really work out differently?

It probably gets complicated w/ ads vs premium subs, but if I was 1 subscriber and there were 100 total subs, and I listened exclusively to 1 artist, but 99 other people listened to a different artist... the artist I listened to gets the same amount if they get 100% of my fee or 1% of the total fees, right?

I guess users with idle subscriptions is another edge case here.

<comment><USER45> I wonder how that is influenced by demographics, i.e. if the people who are on a family plan or a free plan are more likely to listen to certain artists and less likely to listen to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Based on the Spotify revenue model my favourite artist might make a few dollars off me over our entire lifetimes. This is not enough to sustain all but the biggest artists. I am happy to contribute more to smaller artists I appreciate. Seeing them on tour, buying CDs, buying merch, patreon type models and even straight up contributions on paypal and venmo. I've been buying a couple hundred bucks worth every bandcamp Friday since the start of covid. It is not just Spotify, none of the streaming fremium music subscription services provide me an effective way to support the artists I like.

Cory Doctorow points the way in _Information Doesn't Want to Be Free_ talking about future models for artists to make a living. It might superficially seem like the Spotify CEO is saying the same things but this is just cover for the gatekeepers to keep an unconscionable share for themselves.

<comment><USER47> Yep, he's telling musicians what he wants them to optimize for his platform, which does not pay viable rates and never will. Which means if you ARE a musician you should run the other direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I used to hunt for music and movies. I was an enthusiastic movie and music fan. But these days, I mostly give up. I listen to underground/indie artists and some classical music. I ignore popular music and movies, especially those promoted on big platforms like Spotify.

It's sad that many talented artists are brainwashed by these big platforms. They chase after big money. They don't produce anything original.

I think the same thing is happening to software.

</comment><comment><USER49> I disagree. Musicians can do whatever they want. Not very many musicians spend their time riding a perpetual wave that they have to continually feed. Spotify benefits the most from this churn.

<comment><USER50> > Musicians can do whatever they want.

They can, but only as long as they don't care about money. But musicians also need to pay rent.

<comment><USER49> How much money? Enough for personal private jets or enough to make a living? If the bar is to simply pay the rent then I still think that musicians can do what they want.

<comment><USER51> I don't think this subthread is any use when you're just speaking of "musicians" at large being able to pay their rent.

You can't put Rammstein in the same league as my friend who would like to make a living in music but realizes that it's unlikely he'll ever make pay-the-rent kind of money from that, simply due to the sheer volume of competition and luck involved (while their music is as good as any song I've heard in the genre, it's a combination of reaching the right people and stumbling upon better ideas than your competition, which both have a significant luck factor). The former can do what they want and still get that private jet, the latter has to "spend their time riding a perpetual wave that they have to continually feed" and likely still couldn't pay the rent. That spectrum is way too broad to generalize into "musicians".

<comment><USER52> I'd just like to take a second to appreciate that your example of a band with money is Rammstein. Rock on!

<comment><USER53> Unrelated to the topic at hand, but I've always been curious how much it costs Rammstein to do their shows. Their most recent tour took ~60 hours per stop to set up the stage and equipment brought in by a convoy of 18 wheelers. Then they have a bunch of complicated pyrotechnics, crazy amounts of lights, costumes, props, gigantic screens, and they perform in the largest venues available. The amount of resources and people it requires is staggering to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> default-kramer > The artists today that are making it realize that it's about creating a > continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, > about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous > dialogue with your fans.

Maybe if you want to be mega-successful, but I have to believe there's room for other approaches too. My favorite band that I've discovered since joining Spotify is Darkwater. They have three albums (2007, 2010, and 2019). Right now, this is the only band I would absolutely make sure to see if they tour within a couple 100 miles. I have to believe they're paying the bills without too much trouble.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm not sure why this is controversial.

In the vinyl era, when a single LP was about 40 minutes long, it was pretty normal for artists to release roughly an album a year. (e.g. Led Zeppelin's eight studio albums were released over a span of 10.5 years, but one was a double album and they took a long break when Robert Plant's son died. The first 7 albums were released over 7 years).

It seems like it was only when albums started to be recorded for the longer CD format (75 min or so) that the time between albums seemed to increase, as if artists felt they needed to have enough material to fill a substantial fraction of a CD's capacity before releasing.

Now that we're in the streaming era, there isn't any particular container size to "fill" to make an album, so there isn't any particular reason for bands to wait long periods, except for their own creative cycles. The notion of an "album" isn't really constrained by any physical limits anymore and it's really just "a bunch of songs released together".

I think the Ek's statements just reflect the fact that it's easier to be successful if you're prolific, and the the new model actually pays when people _listen_ (roughly speaking), rather than just when they buy.

[edit: punctuation]

<comment><USER55> I honestly don't think the length of the albums matter. As bands get more successful, they tour more, and that eats up all of their time. Lots of bands will tour for 2 full years after an album release, and only then start to work on another.

Back in the 70's, bands just didn't casually tour the world like now.

<comment><USER54> Bands toured like crazy in the 70's. Led Zeppelin II was written and recorded on the road. (technically that was the 60s, tho)

I think you have the causality backwards. Because CDs were a longer format, they enabled bands to take longer tours before having to release another album.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Don't people write and listen to entire albums anymore? When I listen to music, I almost always listen to entire albums, not individual songs.

<comment><USER57> Not really. Most people hated getting and paying for whole albums, out of which most stuff was garbage.

Few artists have whole albums worth listening to.

<comment><USER21> I dont know why people listen to artists who can't put out reasonably consistent music. If only 10% of an artists output is not garbage, are they any good at all?

Reviews for metal bands will trash albums that only have 1 or 2 good songs.

<comment><USER32> Because music isn't plain engineering.

Some artists have one piece that is great for a wide audience and all of their other stuff is only for select listeners.(aka one hit wonders)

If you only listened to people who release consistently good music - you'd listen to 10 artists in total(or something like that).

<comment><USER58> No, only vapid pop music follows that one-hit-wonder blueprint. In almost every other genre the expectation is that a great album will be consistently great.

Sorry that you know of only ten decent bands, when there are actually tens of thousands of artists that never add filler to their albums.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> That's a strange stance. I assume there are a fair number of listeners that don't care to listen to anything new. Is there some business benefit to Spotify by artificially forcing churn?

<comment><USER3> It's not about listening to something new; it's about the wave of hype and promo you do around each release, it keeps you relevant and gives you something to talk about, keeps you fresh in peoples minds.

<comment><USER60> There must be a niche for artists who record so rarely that each of their albums is accompanied by a 10000-word thinkpiece in the New Yorker.

<comment><USER3> This is basically Tool, as someone else pointed out in this thread, but it's not a reliable or sustainable model for 99.9999% of artists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> How many artists on Spotify net more than $1k/year? How many net more than $10k/year?

How many of those artists continuously engage with the community? How many were famous before Spotify existed?

</comment><comment><USER62> As my musician friend told me -> "In music, you don't get to update your songs. Once it's out, it's there for the world to see." (Or something like that.)

It's not like software where we can iterate/improve as we learn. In music, you capture a moment, a sensation, an experience - and you had better capture it as intended, even if that means an extra month in the studio.

This same musician told me that the increased ubiquity of singles is intended to speed up iteration/feedback/ship cycles.

<comment><USER63> It's interesting cause Kanye intentionally or unintentionally experimented with updating Life of Pablo several times. He changed track order, changed the production, changed the lyrics a bit. I believe he released 4 different versions.

It was super interesting at the time and a lot of internet music circles were talking about the potential of this going forward considering it's only possible because of the streaming services. But unfortunately it didn't seem to catch on and I haven't seen any other examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I don't know enough about it to know if they are paying enough or if their payment rules need to change, but not everyone needs to be Britney Spears.

In fact, having tremendous wealth and fame come with additional costs. You end up needing a mansion, not for the space per se but for privacy and security. You end up needing bodyguards. Etc.

One way to make services like Spotify make sense for "average joe" musicians and other creatives is to address the other half of the equation: The cost of living for the average joe.

We basically only build upper class housing these days. The average new home in the 1950s was about 1200 square feet and housed about 3.5 people. These days, it's more like 2400 square feet (or more) and houses about 2.5 people

We have also torn down a million SROs and we largely have done away with things like boarding houses, where you rented a room and got breakfast and dinner as part of the rent and you supplied your own lunch elsewhere. Instead, we default to expecting young people to share a house or apartment designed for a nuclear family with a bunch of strangers. Then we make horror movies about it, like _Single White Female_ , and then fail to go "Huh. Maybe that's not such a wonderful thing to insist young, single people do."

Health care is another major issue in the US. It costs way too much and many other developed countries handle that better, so we have many other examples to draw from. It's not like we need to brilliantly design something that's never been done before to make this work. We just mostly need the political will and to take our heads out of our butts in this country.

</comment><comment><USER65> That sort of discourages deep work, similar to journalists encouraged to tweet often instead of releasing larger , more in-depth articles once a month.

</comment><comment><USER66> Spotify pays independent artists (that aren't part of large negotiated artist pools from seriously major labels) poorly.

Indie artists are sinking more into getting their songs promoted on playlists than they gain in streaming revenue in return. It's literally "pay to be played"

(Remember "Pay to Play" in Sunset Strip clubs in the 80's? You would literally front the money for renting the club on a Tuesday or Thursday and then sell tickets and hope to pay off your "concert" (Friday/Saturday had music the club actually booked & paid, hence their "reputation" was solid)

Anyway, I severely resent the massive influence these relatively new corporate overlords have had in reducing the value of music significantly.

BANDCAMP is one suggested remedy, as they take their (relatively small, I think its' around 10%?) cut from your sales and allow you to have your bands page and sub-domain "yourband.bandcamp.com" etc... in other words: they treat you respectfully as humans should treat other humans.

This race to the bottom can only end in more Aututuned Pop, lol...

</comment><comment><USER66> Spotify are effectively parasites. They pay poorly. Dominate the market. Force everyone to accept their poor treatment through their market domination. (Go watch some Youtube tutorials on paid spotify placement services) And thus, this youthful tech CEO is speaking from a position of extreme privilege with an eye towards what is good for HIS business, but bad for musicians. I hope Spotify goes away, but it probably won't. The consumer side is pretty good/enticing etc. The musician side is 2-tiered. The vast majority of the POOLED streaming revenue goes to large labels who manage global pop stars. Indie artists can just go die under a rock... ermmm "try harder"

I don't really want to read 20 hackernews' argue about how hard it is/isn't to make a hit album. Quality music takes more effort, training, and skill to make than low-quality music, and this is not about the production alone. Expert- level musicians are generally disregarded by Joe Q. Public in favor of Joe Q. Publics "favorite" musicians, training and knowledge and compositional skill notwithstanding. The limiting factor is Joe Q. Public's musical listening skills, which certainly will not improve in a world that is racing to achieve cheaper mass-produced conformist "music" that likely will be replaced by algorithmic generation in the near future.

I am hardly a great composer, but even I could describe formulaic "genre music" in such a manner that a decent music AI could iterate it nonstop.

The subject of people "liking genres" rather than following individual artists of talent across their works as they explore all genres, etc... that's a different topic for a different day.

I will also contend that grooming a public to like simplistic rhythms that are easy to program on 16-note step sequencers is not accidental.

</comment><comment><USER67> Can someone explain why the revenue sharing model is broken on Spotify? A lot of bluecheck indie bands complain about their meager $28 monthly checks. I even saw a performative tweet from a label the other day: [https://twitter.com/DonGiovanniRecs/status/12865225202213847...](https://twitter.com/DonGiovanniRecs/status/1286522520221384704)

Let's say I run a bookstore. 70% of my revenue goes to pay workers. A works 32 hours, B works 5 hours, and C works 3 hours.

Is it not fair to give A 80% of the pay pool, since she worked 80% of the hours?

Finally, terrestrial pop radio, independent college radio, and ham radioesque bedroom experimentalists are all on the same platform, the swim lanes have been erased. Everything is flattened, everything is discoverable, yet the sobering truth that few people are streaming their work elicits attacks on Spotify from bands and marginal artists. How is their contempt justified?

<comment><USER68> If you're running a brick and mortar book store, payroll would unlikely be 70%. Payroll would be your highest cost but it should be 30% on the high end.

If we want to try and analyze this, we should analyze what music distribution was like prior to digital. My guess is that for most artist who went through traditional publishing and distribution, they only received 10-20% per album sale. That seems high too.

<comment><USER67> I should have been clearer, I used 70% of revenue because that is what Spotify gives to artists. Of course, software can do that as it scale infinitely, retail cannot. I can't tell if 70% is generous or not -- many independent artists think it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Sounds like he's trying to redefine the music industry. Seems like most artists have a 5 year window, likely in their 20s where they'll produce something resonating with the current generation(s) and after that the younger clientele will be looking for something to define their own thing as well as the artist scratching around for some inspiring material. Generally of course. I take the position that most artists are in that bracket but exceptionally talented musicians have a longer lifespan.

Of course, a platform wants people to keep strutting out stuff on their own platform.

As for royalties from Spotify, perhaps an issue of the middlemen required and not required. I remember chat about the web being a great evener on this front where independents could strut their stuff and virality would take care of the rest.

Apparently convenience and one platform, as with so many things on the web trumps everything else.

</comment><comment><USER70> People are railing at Spotify, when in reality this is responding to the desire and behavior of customers. All of the platforms are moving to a $10/month all-you-can-eat model, because customers love it and will pay. What this does is move the industry from an album model, where people buy bundles of songs and own them forever whether they listen or not, to a radio model, where people snack on music in curated playlists. In the album model, artists are incentivized to put out one or two hit tracks and then backfill with lesser material, or spend time curating an hour-long story. In the radio model, artists are incentivized to iterate on and tweak their hits with mash- ups, remixes, collabs, etc. That's why Lil Nas X put out _FIVE_ versions of Old Town Road.

</comment><comment><USER51> I don't get the fuzz about this. He can claim whatever he wants but fans will continue to listen to whatever they want. Artists can cater to it or not and all of it is outside of this CEO's control. It seems to be meant to discredit Spotify when I really don't think the alternatives are much better; even if alternatives currently pay artists better, they don't charge significantly more, which is the only way to pay artists more in the long run. Someone else said it somewhere in a subthread: charging subscribers enough to pay all those artists a livable wage just means they lose subscribers, go bankrupt (they're already not profitable), and end up paying artists zero in a few years.

</comment><comment><USER71> So many bands lose their creative spark after the first album or two, and it's exactly because of this mentality. I'd rather have one album of music carefully curated over 4 years than four albums than have 4 albums rushed out over a year. The creative process takes time. If you just rush out the next album you're probably just adding onto the already massive heap of formulaic uninspired music. I'm not saying you can't have quality AND quantity, but the number of bands who can crank out both is limited.

<comment><USER72> Some famous musician (can't remember their name) said something along the lines "you take 10 years to write your first album and they expect you to write the second in 6 months".

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> This moron's statements piss me off so deeply I don't even know where to start.

The commoditization of Music? The complete lack of understanding of how creativity works? Telling artists to "work harder" while his net worth is in the billions, all thanks to the exploitation of said artists?

All this non-sense during a terrible crisis that puts many musicians out of job since nowadays they have to rely on live performances to make a buck, all thanks to....platforms like spotify?

Can we please boycott spotify to hell?

</comment><comment><USER74> I have never used Spotify and I never will. For me it's the Clear Channel of this decade, more interested in monetizing 'content' and having other people define genres so they can pipe similar music into people's ears for profit. A giant swathe of the 'music industry' has zero interest or understanding of creative processes, they just want product that sells easily. These formulaic eras always bland out and I'm sure Spotify will be no different

</comment><comment><USER75> > The artists today that are making it realize that it's about creating a > continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, > about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous > dialogue with your fans

The CEO shows a concerning misunderstanding. Some music is timeless. Some songs remain landmarks even decades after their release.

I abhor it when people force their own music preferences and beliefs on others. As other people have said, Mr. Ek can go fuck himself.

</comment><comment><USER76> As Spotify CEO, we should think he isn't speaking to musicians, but to all the bigger labels on how to make the most money. Musicians should feel they can do whatever they want, and should, and probably would, but I reckon they would eventually hear it from their manager once the instructions trickle down the chain of command. That is, any musician signed and making money. To everyone else, the industry itself is largely irrelevant to their craft or their income.

</comment><comment> 8f2ab37a-ed6c I'm curious if anybody here has the experience to compare how much harder it is to make a living in music as an artists vs how hard it is to break into tech.

I'm biased myself, having spent the last 20 years studying software dev and then working in software. I feel that while it is a lot of work, the market is quite hot for any technical talent, and making a decent living is straightforward. Even a shitty software dev likely makes a comfortable living, you don't have to be Jeff Dean. In CS you can graduate from MIT and probably be set for life, but in music you can graduate from Juliard or Berklee and likely still be living on a futon for decades. Or am I off here?

Whereas as a solo producer/composer (or someone in a band) it seems that getting anywhere near ramen profitability is really really hard. It's reminiscent of startups: you have to find your niche, you have to constantly stay relevant, you have to market yourself incessantly on every medium, and most likely you'll be drowned into obscurity by someone else who became a winner-take-all in that space. And while the payoff for founders in small to medium startups is still pretty decent (and can be life-changing), as an artist is seems like the polarization between starving and huge is even greater.

Even in photography you can always "sell out" and shoot weddings in perpetuity while you're doing more artistic work on the side. And that "main gig" pays reasonably well, even though it's exhausting. But with music things like playing gigs will likely not get you anywhere close to sustainability. Maybe teaching is the "weddings" of music?

<comment><USER77> I have flirted with the music industry for longer than I've been an engineer, and the reason I kept getting pulled back into programming is that it is much easier to make much more money. But I think your question makes a false dichotomy. Building a band/solo act is like founding a startup, and being a programmer is more like being a wedding DJ. I think in both cases, you have better odds in the tech world.

I once had a piano teacher who remarked: "why do musicians make so little money? For the same reason they do so many drugs. Professional musicians are paid in dopamine."

There is nothing like a crowd cheering for you.

But you're right, you can make a living being a wedding DJ, or if you can get gigs at upscale hotels/restaurants playing cello or piano, you can make a pretty decent living as a musician. But it takes a lot more work than learning to hook up a bunch of web forms to a database, and usually, it pays a lot less money. Then there's always teaching; and I believe if you have the ability to kindly teach music to children, you have attained enlightenment.

If you are striking out on your own, the grind is like founding a startup. If you build yet another photo-sharing app (or you're a guitar player who sings about love), you have to be uncommonly talented and lucky to break through. Similarly, startups come in many genres; maybe high tech startups are like jazz - often founded by PhDs, and very often failures because no one can wrap their head around it - even though it is brilliant.

If you can make it work - either startups or music, you get paid in dopamine and money. If you make it out the other side of that gauntlet, I believe you have also achieved enlightenment.

If you want to "make a living", it can be done in music. However, you will generally be more stable and comfortable in the world of tech.

<comment> 8f2ab37a-ed6c > musicians are paid in dopamine

That's a good point, never thought of it that way. As a developer, it's satisfying to get better at your craft and to get small dopamine boosts from elegantly written solutions, but it's not like the rollercoaster of being in front of a bajillion people and sweating bullets and nailing your part, especially when playing in a band and melting away into something bigger than you. You can only get so much transcendence from writing login flow #65 and getting your integration tests to pass.

To be fair, as a startup founded you also don't exactly feel these incredible peaks of dopamine, but there's a longer sense of satisfaction, confidence and ownership of being a big part of something successful that puts food on the table for a bunch of people and solves pain points for even more people.

The way I see it, and I'd be curious to hear what you think, is that trying to get big the hard and old way in music (aka make a "stale" genre album, release album, hope you go viral) is kind of like starting yet another pizza shop in the middle of new york city. You're one of many, you likely don't have anything so revolutionary to suddenly crush your competition. You're very much of a commodity. Seems to me that you'd be much better off being at the beginning of a new fashion or trend in music genres, or using a new music or distribution technology (e.g. drum machines & synths, or maybe streaming your music on Twitch, or maybe TikTok) that's suddenly getting people's attention. Like with a startup, you'd be better off taking advantage of a landscape shift of sorts rather than making photo sharing app #57365 in 2020. Still won't guarantee success, but at least will improve it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Looking at it in terms of one of the "golden ages" of recording music - <USER2> in the 1960s, think the Beatles - this would mean only returning to what has already proven possible before. Some artists in those previous eras were able to deliver remarkable music as much as twice a year over consecutive years.

Perhaps it was a less competitive industry at the time, but certainly less efficient (and relatively more expensive) production tools were available compared to today.

<comment><USER79> > Some artists in those previous eras were able to deliver remarkable music as > much as twice a year over consecutive years.

I'll just leave this here [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa_discography](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Zappa_discography)

<comment><USER80> I love Zappa. But I think John Zorn wins:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn_discography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn_discography)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Sharing a concrete example: 4 friends of mine are in a moderately successful band in LA. They have 1M monthly listeners on Spotify, and their top track has 17M plays. Spotify sends them ~$2k/month, which isn't enough for 4 to live on (they live together, and record with their own equipment in a rented house). To make ends meet, they play live shows and tour (which isn't an option anymore). Support your favorite bands by buying merch.

<comment><USER82> Assuming a 90% cut for record stores and labels, I imagine they'd have gotten about a million collectively back in the 90's.

1M * $15 * 0.1 = $1.5M

<comment><USER38> This implies that every listener would have bought the CD. In reality, many of these listeners were just letting the playlist roll without thinking about it, and would not have spent a penny out of their pockets for that particular song.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> The problem with Spotify is how they allocate royalties.

If I pay my £10 a month and only listen to whatever 5 indie bands I like, I'd expect them to get £2 each from my listening.

But they don't. Lady Gaga will get most of my money despite me never listening to her music, because all they do is put everyone's money in a big pile and divide it up depending on who got the most listens.

They have to do that because otherwise Lady Gaga wasn't put her music on Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER84> I'm a musician. But I will never make music like that. Also I will never use Daniel Ek's platform, unless I just by pure chance become one of the biggest out there, which I doubt. But then I don't make music for a living, and nor would I want to–especially in this day and age–despite a lot of folks telling me that I probably should.

The question then becomes, when I already know other valuable professions, why would I want to? Then the income would have to rival the other work I can do. I mean, I do get more pleasure from making music, but only because I don't overdo it. Work, on the other hand, is work. If I made music into work, I'm not sure I'd like it anymore. So then whatever I produce is intermittent.

But, if I wanted to make music a secondary activity, that doesn't need to be my main source of income, then yeah, I'd probably keep pushing music to places like Bandcamp. And I guess that's the beauty of it, because now there finally is a niche for us who don't want to be slaves to the art. Or to Ek's platform. So while Ek makes these outrageous claims, I'll be doing something completely different. And when I do decide to make love to my guitar, the music that comes out of it, will be a love child, and not the work of a mindless slave.

This is why I think "working musicians" never have to become slaves of the stupid and oppressive ideas of people like Ek. I just don't buy into that crap. There's a market. And that market has alternatives that also works for us who "just" want to release stuff intermittently. In fact I don't even use his platform to listen to music. Why, when there are so many great alternatives, that are also much more fair to the creators? (I guess an Ek fanboi downvoted. Hey if you've got something to say, say it, coward!)

</comment><comment><USER85> I don't see the lie here. :)

Many of us in the music industry have been doing more single-based releases than album-based, because there really is no point to albums anymore. If you have a couple of tracks that all fit together, by all means, release them at once. But music isn't album-driven anymore, it's track-driven, and has been for a very long time.

<comment><USER86> >But music isn't album-driven anymore, it's track-driven, and has been for a very long time.

This is exactly the problem: the technological advances changed the music consumption and music, unfortunately, follows. So instead of empowering the artists with more creative freedom it forced everyone to follow the same route. It's appalling.

<comment><USER87> I don't know. Even back when CDs where still a thing, I never listened/liked the full album of any band. I think the most was like 50%. Maybe the technological advancements only make visible what was there before: only a minority listens to everything by one artist. Most people prefer a song or two and skip the rest, but they aren't forced to buy the whole album anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> Honestly, this seems beneficial to the musicians too. No longer worry about months/years of work going into an album that flops.

Be more iterative, experimental, and user driven by releasing an album's worth of content over the course of a few years. Seems like this reduces the risk for musicians publishing music that doesn't have an audience.

<comment><USER89> > Be more iterative, experimental, and user driven

My heart has fallen at the thought of agile software development invading the creative process

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The secret to modern music isn't releasing full albums, but to release singles throughout the year. That is the future. I've even seen some (small-mid size) musicians simply have Patreon subscriptions to get new music, and then release the best on Spotify, etc. (I live in Nashville, so I feel like I'm near the cutting edge)

</comment><comment><USER91> It's probably true and I find it sad. The best musical experiences I had have been from albums, not single tracks.

No more albums every 3/4 years means no more singles leading to the hype of an album nor more meaningful shows around one theme. No more albums means no more ways to put something on for an hour of development and feeling like you're (re)living something that has a beginning and an end while having consistency.

During this quarantine, After Hours by the Weeknd and The Slow Rush by Tame Impala have been my best partners. Sure I've listened to playlists, but the delusion of The Weeknd and the tempo of Tame Impala's album will stay in my mind as elements of this period, not single tracks. Asking musicians to constantly release is like removing the concept of books to only satisfy ourselves with news articles and tweets. Maybe it makes more money, but what a depressing artistic world.

<comment><USER92> Huge +1

I really only listen to whole albums. Especially Tame Impala, Father John Misty, Mac DeMarco, Lana Del Ray, Fleer Foxes, St. Vincent, Sufjan Stevens, and on. Those type of artists won't change because of whatever the Spotify CEO believes. There is still a place for thoughtfully-crafted full albums and they'll continue to exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Great, but 80% of it is crap either way. Does anyone else have difficulty finding good music suggestions?

Recommendations from friends for movies and TV shows are usually very good, but not with music. My opinion of Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music recommendations is much worse. I find that I am better off randomly picking music tracks.

<comment><USER94> There are a lot of good options for finding music. Some take more work than others. Some things I've done with success:

* go to the wikipedia page for an artist or album you like and look for

      * reviews and ratings that line up with what you thought: you might find a critic or outlet with similar tastes that can provide new recommendations

      * the producer or label: their other works might be similar to what you already like

      * (on the artist page) the "associated acts" of the artist: you might like other projects with which the artist is involved

      * any influences listed: you might like what the artist liked

* find a forum that aligns with your taste

      * reddit has many music sub-reddits https://www.reddit.com/r/Music/wiki/musicsubreddits

      * /mu/ is actually a pretty good 4chan board.  The essentials wiki is a good starting point that doesn't require filtering through trolling: https://4chanmusic.fandom.com/wiki/Essential_Charts

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> "Albums" are an artifact of the LP, cassette, and CD era. It's no longer necessary to release music as a collection, unless the point is to tell a larger story (eg. Kendrick Lamar's DAMN).

I think singles and smaller albums (5 tracks or less) are the sweet spot these days - for consumers and for artists.

</comment><comment><USER96> Strange interview. As a Spotify customer this doesn't give me that warm fuzzy feeling about supporting artists. It's more likely to make me think twice about giving them my money. It's almost as if he was trying to annoy his artists and his customers. At best it comes across as pretty arrogant.

</comment><comment><USER97> I notice an interesting adaption to this in the metalcore scene. Bands release shorter EP's (5-6 song mini albums) more frequently. In some cases 2 separate EP's are re-released after as a combined album plus 1-3 new bonus tracks.

At first I didn't really like this trend b/c I enjoy listening to the full album through on first listen. But I do understand why they are doing this to adapt to the streaming age.

Instead of releasing a 12-song album once every two years, they split that release into 3 every 6 months (5 song EP, 5 song EP, combined album + 2 bonus). As consumers we get the music earlier and more frequently. They get 3 release hype cycles for the same amount of creative work, which is what they need to be discovered in streaming platforms.

<comment><USER39> That has been going on in the greater metal scene for a long time. Especially for smaller artists, they put out a bunch of demos and EPs before putting together an album. In contrast to what you're mentioning, often the main tracks of some of the EPs will be on the album, but all of the "b-sides" will only be available on the EPs, but I've also seen examples of multiple EPs being re-released together. Not necessarily as an album in the traditional sense, but as a compilation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Music release trends are now converging towards software development speed & iteration cycles haha

</comment><comment><USER99> Fiona Apple disagrees!

<comment><USER100> Adele too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Try telling that to Tool.

<comment><USER3> They're the exception to the rule. Don't pretend like they're a model everyone should follow. It's simply not feasible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER102> I wish I had this much audacity in my own life, lololol.

"We're not making enough money from you lazy idiots we stole from the main music industry, noses to the grind-stones!!!"

</comment><comment><USER103> I wish as a species we were smart enough not to turn everything good we did or could do into shit in the name of profit by building models that just churn more. TBH, reading "what is required [by music artists][...] is creating a continuous engagement with their fans" my arms fell off to the ground. Seriously, now the requirement for a form of art is engaging with fans? Well thanks Spotify for the nails to seal the coffin of good music I guess.

</comment><comment><USER104> Music is a commodity, a very easy to produce and distribute commodity. The facts are that the market was artificially controlled for the later half of the 20th century. Musicians, throughout history, have seldom made money. The later half of the 20th century was the anomaly, not the market of today or of prior...

As a musician and someone who spent years in the "biz". Its never going to be like it was in the 70's. Those days are gone.

</comment><comment><USER105> >'"Ek claimed that a "narrative fallacy" had been created and caused music fans to believe that Spotify doesn't pay musicians enough for streams of their music. "Some artists that used to do well in the past may not do well in this future landscape," Ek said, "where you can't record music once every three to four years and think that's going to be enough."'

I'm pretty sure that paying a streaming royalty of $00.0038 per stream is an established fact and not a "narrative fallacy."[1]

Only a small handful of artists in the world have ever been able to afford to take 4 years off between albums. These are the U2 and Cold Plays. These are also the touring acts that make a fortune on the road so it's highly unlikely that these people are complaining. The majority of artists are hard working. The only way they make money now is by going on the road. It's helps to sell tickets if you have a new release you are promoting that their fans are excited about. It takes time to write an album's worth of good material. Once that's done you have to record, mix and master the record. This can easily take months. Once the album is in the can its up to the record company to choose a release date. There's usually some strategy with the date that is chosen. It takes time to book a tour and tour dates have their own strategy so it's not uncommon for a record to be done but not release for another few months. Then the artists goes on the road - they will try to hit the festival circuit in the US in spring and the European festival circuit in summer and then a tour in the Fall. All of this take time. A lot of time. Maybe you could complete this cycle "write, record, tour" cycle every year and certainly band in the 70's did for a time but that's not sustainable. Certainly not for anyone but a young person in their early 20's. Even being able to complete the "write, record, tour" cycle every 18 months is a grind.

Does Daniel Ek really not understand any of the basic realities of being a musical artist in 2020? Is he that clueless or is he simply promoting his own "narrative fallacy" of the lazy complaining artist?

[1] [https://help.songtrust.com/knowledge/what-is-the-pay-rate- fo...](https://help.songtrust.com/knowledge/what-is-the-pay-rate-for-spotify- streams)

</comment><comment><USER106> Yup. Musicians are releasing like 20 new tracks per hour to Jango. I know because I'm on a mission to collect all of it. And like 71% is from independent artists who will never make it big and nobody will listen to. Not even me even though I like obscure stuff but even I can't keep up with the amount of new music that gets released all day every day.

</comment><comment><USER107> Frustrating, but unsurprising. I look at electronic musicians online and you can see that - 15 years ago they'd drop one album every few years and it would be wall-to-wall perfection. Now they drop multiple albums per year and it's mostly... okay.

YouTube did the same thing to video content. The internet drives everything to the lowest common denominator.

</comment><comment><USER108> When it comes to Spotify's payment model I would rather that my $10 a month be split between the artists I listen to (based on number of plays) rather than the artists only getting $0.006 to $0.0084 for every play. I think for the more niche artists that can't rack up the plays this model could be more sustainable. Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER109> The Spotify scam is incredible. Negotiate a 'deal' with the people that own you. Negotiate with hat deal. In favour of your owners and against the artists. Justify not paying more to the content creators based on making no money but the money you are 'losing' is going directly to your owners.

Hollywood accounting at its finest

</comment><comment><USER110> > "The artists today that are making it realize that it's about creating a > continuous engagement with their fans. It is about putting the work in, > about the storytelling around the album, and about keeping a continuous > dialogue with your fans."

FU. A musician's job is to create music. Period. It's hard enough on it's own.

</comment><comment><USER111> Yes they can. Spotify fortunately is not the only way in which musicians can reach and audience and for some musicians it is still an art rather than a sausage of which they need to produce an extra quota to boost every Spotify quarterly earnings report.

Quality takes time, especially in music.

I wonder if that CEO has ever made any music themselves?

<comment><USER32> Even the best musicians get left behind.

If you completely ignore your audience and don't work with them - who's going to buy your stuff?

<comment><USER111> That's a good time to ask yourself why you make music in the first place.

<comment><USER32> And that's one of the points Ek was making - work with your fans and keep them engaged. Frequent releases help a lot with that.

<comment><USER111> You are missing my point I think. Musicians do not necessarily make music for their fans and to 'engage' with people. It is art. It doesn't necessarily have to please anybody but the person that made it and it is still perfectly valid. Yes, people have to eat. But plenty of art was made by people without any form of compensation or interaction with their 'fanbase'. That's just mr. Ek saying what would help _him_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> I don't think this is true remotely. In the last few years my only music purchases have been album releases on Bandcamp or independent record label sites, for musical acts like The Field, Swans and Nation of Language.

They release every 3-4 years and I buy albums. Works great.

I don't have any streaming music service.

</comment><comment><USER113> I think the main issue is that people don't buy albums anymore. They only buy/listen to singles. So it doesn't make sense to work on a full album and release it a the same time. Because of the new channels, it makes more sense to release individual songs at regular intervals.

</comment><comment><USER114> Article links to (based on) [https://musically.com/2020/07/30/spotify-ceo- talks-covid-19-...](https://musically.com/2020/07/30/spotify-ceo-talks- covid-19-artist-incomes-and-podcasting-interview/)

</comment><comment><USER115> Imho allow free streaming and pay for downloads of what i like. Happy to pay £10-15 direct to artist with 100% going to them. Streaming can be covered by adverts.

Simples, but apperently so far :(

Otherwise paid performance amd commissions etc are always ways to generate more revenue.

No time for diatribution companies these days.

</comment><comment><USER116> It's interesting he's focused on quantity, and not quality. Maybe it's Spotify's suggestion algorithm but too much of what I hear sounds disposable. Not bad. Not a lack of talent. But a lack of ambition and a willingness to take chances.

Or am I too old for my own good?

</comment><comment><USER117> Scrum sprints for musicians. Sad news.

</comment><comment><USER118> I don't see anyone discussing this but I wonder if this also is a consequence of the platforms making more music available to people.

Artists are now competing in a larger pond. It would make sense (to me), that people move on from certain music quicker than they used too.

</comment><comment><USER119> Spotify's CEO justifies Spotify business model by deflecting blame to musicians. News at 11.

</comment><comment><USER120> Imagine we treated audio production the same way we treated video/movie production. The whole paradigm between starving musicians and Hollywood film stars is ridiculous. And to be honest, the two trades are not that much far removed from each other.

</comment><comment><USER121> Ok, musicians, you wanna be in a band, get your nose to the grindstone! We have a lot of streaming time to fill up, so quit goofing off!

The Beatles only produced about 10 hours of unique music in their entire career. Can't coast like that any more!

</comment><comment><USER122> How broken must your business model be, such that you _tell artists_ what they should do?

</comment><comment> user00012-ab I think they are confusing musician with "content producer" Musicians make the music that we end up listening to 20 years later, content producers are the ones that create crap for us every day so we don't get bored that day.

</comment><comment><USER123> I went back and read the original interview and I still don't know what he was actually trying to say. He stressed that artists need continuous engagement with their community and the old business model didn't work anymore. But I really can't tell if he was trying to say staggered, small releases, and do away with the big promos for albums, or if he really was saying "stop being lazy and churn out more product." He could easily claim the former for PR reasons, but the language he uses in the interview is incredibly ambiguous I honestly just have no idea what he's talking about. The sensationalist reporting obviously wants to play up the controversy, acting like the least favorable interpretation is unambiguously the correct one, but that's precisely why the public no longer trusts news media.

<comment><USER124> Ah yes: the fader, a smaller music publication, is just an example of why we should disregard media as a whole. /s

I don't think the article is that sensational, I just think that you might have a predisposed belief that news media is always (or at least most of the time) sensationalized.

<comment><USER123> My point was of course they're going to go with one interpretation. I myself can't figure out what the hell he actually meant to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> Musicians should be getting closer and closer to 100% royalties as the infrastructure gets cheaper and cheaper. But, tech CEOs all like crappy music. Which is why they should never be in control of the livelihoods of creatives.

<comment><USER126> The reason there are any royalties to distribute at all is that Spotify has managed to create a distribution service that ppl are willing to pay for. You can get free distribution for your music easily. Just put it on any torrent site...

</comment></comment><comment><USER127> This is a such a clickbait title. Here I thought Spotify was requiring musicians to require more frequently, when all he meant was that if you release once every 3-4 years you're not going to see good results.

</comment><comment><USER128> I publish one five-track mixtape as a solo artist once a year; and whatever singles I end up just naturally doing, as well. It's a nice method that has successfully netted me some actual revenue, shockingly.

</comment><comment><USER129> I think Ek said this as a factual analysis of how the world works now.

The Angry People here seem to read it as him _ordering_ musicians what to do to have a place in his world.

It's all about what tone you read the quote in.

</comment><comment><USER52> You hear that, Sufjan? Let's see the rest of the 50 state albums

<comment><USER130> Incidentally, he just released "America"... [https://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/america](https://sufjanstevens.bandcamp.com/album/america)

<comment><USER52> Lol I guess that's one way to cover all 50 states? I guess he doesn't owe us anything. It would just be so great to get like, an Alaska album.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER131> Seems a bit weird not to have time to find deep creativity again.

</comment><comment><USER132> I'd be curious to see the data behind these claims. There has to be artists that are successful from timeless music/instant classics.

</comment><comment><USER133> Buckethead should do very well in this new reality.

</comment><comment><USER134> Tomorrow Github announces developers pushing releases (or commits) with less than a certain cadence will be unlisted.

What a time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER135> People who produce for playlists aren't artists, they're designers. Check out Bandcamp or your record store for art.

</comment><comment><USER109> #brokenrecord

Is the hashtag for explication about what a crock of utter shit this is and the unbelievably bent deal that is streaming revenue.

</comment><comment><USER136> Every new song is competing with every previous song in existence now. Data acquisition destroyed music economics.

</comment><comment><USER137> Another distribution middleman telling content providers what to do. The value chain is so fundamentally messed up.

</comment><comment><USER138> Time immemorial: Man who builds a service on the backs of creative people then dictates what they do.

</comment><comment><USER139> Imagine being in charge of a major media company and knowing this little about the product you sell!

</comment><comment><USER140> I guess, that's why the best music I found was made by people who didnt do it as work.

<comment><USER51> Same for software. Sometimes I dream of basic income and everyone having time to do just what they really believe others and they themselves will like to use/listen to/watch/experience, but it probably won't play out like that in my lifetime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER141> Shameless plug: we recently released an album. Features trombones, vocal harmony, keys, drums, positive lyrics, strings. [https://open.spotify.com/album/5x7xJwg3ZkohX8sLcPHe9x](https://open.spotify.com/album/5x7xJwg3ZkohX8sLcPHe9x)

</comment><comment><USER142> "Man who pays people less says they should work more, film at 11"

</comment><comment><USER143> It takes enormous hubris to build a business as a parasite of music and its creators, and subsequently whip them for more productivity. I don't think I am the only person that associates the name "Daniel Elk" with the word "douche- bag" in my head.

</comment><comment><USER144> Commodity sales outfit wants more predictable suppliers, film at 11

</comment><comment><USER145> No single platform shouldn't dictate how an art form operates

</comment><comment><USER146> Shows spotify doesn't give a fuck about the actual musicians.

</comment><comment><USER147> This is a MITM attack on one of our highest forms of art.

</comment><comment><USER148> Meh. The music I listen to is mostly a decade old.

</comment><comment><USER60> COVID-19 is going to completely wreck the music business and the spotify guy is right: only endless social media campaigns with procedurally-generated soundtracks will survive in the future.

<comment><USER131> people enjoy music for various reasons but there are a few deep ones: beauty and live

no system can replace a good live concert, it's a high grade experience (sometimes religious even)

if the music industry goes toward absurdism, the "customers" will just find the real drug elsewhere

<comment><USER49> Gorillaz used to do their shows almost entirely hidden from the audience and the characters would be projected onto screens. If we get to the point where we can generate actual good music we can do it in a live setting with avatars.

<comment><USER131> it's not what I meant, not seeing the band is not 'not being live'

<comment><USER49> Ah, apologies. I had algorithm artists on my mind for whatever reason. Yes, that would still be a live concert and as someone who loves concerts I agree that there is no substitute.

<comment><USER131> Personnaly some of the weirdest and deepest hours of my life were live music. It catchs your soul and also bonds people together. No spotify playlist can do this I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> Daft Punk might be an exception to the rule, then.

</comment><comment><USER150> Definitely an "oh, fuck off" headline.

</comment><comment><USER151> Someone should really tell that to Daft Punk.

</comment><comment><USER152> Beeping Prick !

</comment><comment><USER153> multibillion dollar company tells its digital sharecroppers to work harder for their pennies.

</comment><comment><USER154> Try telling that to Daft Punk

</comment><comment><USER155> Title makes it seem like Spotify will ban an artist if they don't release content regularly. Article says different.

</comment><comment><USER156> Tool disagrees with Spotify CEO

</comment><comment><USER157> Tool just laughs mercilessly.

</comment><comment><USER158> I hate Spotify. So much.

</comment><comment><USER159> Uninstalling Spotify.

</comment><comment><USER160> Title is misleading.

</comment><comment> amw-zero Tell this to Tool.

</comment><comment><USER161> shopify business man confuses pop for music

</comment><comment><USER162> You know that feeling you get when you see, say, CSI "building a GUI interface in Visual Basic to track the killers?" That's how I feel whenever a post about music hits the front page of HN.

Save for a few genuinely educated and empathetic comments (thankfully towards the top for once), these comments (such is tradition) are a sea of Dunning- Kruger effects in full swing.

I'd like to respond to a few confident-and-wrong assertions I'm seeing rear their heads again:

No, "most musicians" don't make most of their money from gigs. That one band you know is not indicative of an entire diverse industry, nor is it a proper sample size. Those are amateur musicians, not pros. A pro musician who makes the bulk of their cash from gigs is doing it wrong. And not all musicians are instrumentalists: some are primarily writers, some are producers, or audio engineers, or synthesists, or whatever. There's so much diversity in this world that you're not aware of. If your idea of a "musician" is "someone carrying an instrument," that's a good sign that you know as much about this world as your family member who says "you're a software developer, why can't you fix my TV" as if knowing about computers means you know about hardware and electronics -- it just betrays a huge amount of ignorance on your part.

No, streaming does not pay people better than album sales. This is just...I don't even know where to start with how wrong this is, so if you believe this just know that you're dead wrong and I'll leave it at that. Look into my previous comments for more info if you'd like.

No, streaming is not supposed to be "exposure." It is a replacement of _both_ album sales and radio plays. Artists and musicians constantly have to defend against the moving of goalposts -- first it was album sales nearly going away, then gigs becoming "exposure" for their albums, then their album sales becoming "exposure" for their gigs, then album sales became totally replaced by streaming and still being seen as "exposure" for their gigs/merch. It's a constant chipping away of previously-decent-income-streams that we're then told to be grateful for because they can apparently "expose" us for better payment. Which takes the form of...what? The only truly reliable thing left is licensing/royalties, which is also very heavily under attack.

Just -- people, please understand that you just probably don't understand very much about the complexities of a market with which you have zero experience. Your armchair analysis that makes sense only within the context of near-total ignorance isn't helping. HN tends to be full of smarter-than-usual people, so at least be smart enough to know when you don't know what you're talking about, and try approaching these topics with more empathy and humility.</comment>


Show HN: Generative art with ant colony optimization algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://amydyer.art/wp/index.php/2020/01/01/drawing-with-ants-generative-art-with-ant-colony-optimization-algorithms/ <comment><USER2> I've worked on a similar topic during my Msc Thesis. It was an application to help evolve parameters of ant colonies using evolutionary computation to render non photorealistic artworks.

Here's a sample of it running: [https://vimeo.com/93903230](https://vimeo.com/93903230)

Here's the link to he project: [https://cdv.dei.uc.pt/photogrowth-ant- painting/](https://cdv.dei.uc.pt/photogrowth-ant-painting/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link, this is fantastic! I love the complex interwoven nature of the patterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a similar topic to the first paper I worked on that got published! We built a system that allowed ants to do compass straightedge construction. Paper link is here: [https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/papers/alife16-geometers.pdf](https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/papers/alife16-geometers.pdf)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading! I'm particularly interested in hearing how a technical audience responds to art like this. Did it resonate for you?

<comment><USER4> The first one looks like pictures of my eye taken after my doctor scans it with a light (I suppose that's just an angiogram you mentioned later). Those rasters were my favorite, and I love the artful clarity of complexity you achieved. I came away appreciating emergence a bit more. Interesting how the complexity resisted the contrivance during attempts to press it into shapes! (subscribed to your newsletter)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I do wonder why the resemblance to veins is so strong. There must be something interesting and emergent going on there, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is some of the most visually stunning stuff I've seen in a while. Excellent job!

</comment><comment><USER6> Good stuff! For some reason you just don't see a lot of machine guided/generated art like this out there, and that's a shame.

<comment><USER7> There's a lot of it happening, it just doesn't get the most attention. If you're in NYC there's a great exhibition on now that includes generative art: [https://sfpc.io/sevenyears/](https://sfpc.io/sevenyears/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is really cool. Do you have some code that you are willing to showcase?

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly - you can look at the source for the p5.js port here, which is basically a line-by-line port of the original processing3 simulation: [https://github.com/oxling/p5js_ants](https://github.com/oxling/p5js_ants)

The other parts, the rasterization and vectorization, I haven't cleaned up to the point where the source isn't terribly embarrassing! One of the weird things about this project was the code became more of a means to an end than an artifact in itself, so it's littered with a lot of dead experiments, swear words, and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems to be dead: "Error establishing a database connection"

<comment><USER10> I'm getting the same. Hopefully it will be fixed when I check back again later.

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, should be back up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know anything about web hosting, but how come HN kills pages so quickly? This has 33 upvotes right now - even when I assume that translates into 1000times the clicks - 33k of _anything_ don't seem that much to my naive assumptions. Is web hosting that hard?

<comment><USER12> It might have gone over a bandwidth threshold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Server ran out of memory, apparently - back up now, with more swap space on the server :)</comment></comment></comment>


A Generalization of the Trie Data Structure (1993) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1166&context=eecs_techreports <comment><USER2> check implementation of Trie - [http://www.techiedelight.com/trie- implementation-insert-sear...](http://www.techiedelight.com/trie- implementation-insert-search-delete/)

[http://www.techiedelight.com/memory-efficient-trie- implement...](http://www.techiedelight.com/memory-efficient-trie- implementation-using-map-insert-search-delete/)</comment>


Scientist suggests possible link between primordial black holes and dark matter - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-05-scientist-link-primordial-black-holes.html <comment><USER2> How does this square with MACHO (non-)observations? [1]

> A MACHO may be detected when it passes in front of or nearly in front of a > star and the MACHO's gravity bends the light, causing the star to appear > brighter in an example of gravitational lensing known as gravitational > microlensing. Several groups have searched for MACHOs by searching for the > microlensing amplification of light. These groups have ruled out dark matter > being explained by MACHOs with mass in the range 1×10−8 solar masses (0.3 > lunar masses) to 100 solar masses.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_compact_halo_object](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_compact_halo_object)

<comment><USER3> That's the first thing I thought of as well, although, it seems the suggested mass range is near the upper end of the excluded range.

Either way, the consensus cosmological model requires a non-baryonic component, which black holes don't provide.

<comment> T-A Black holes do not carry baryon number [1] so as long as they were formed before nucleosynthesis that's not a problem.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No- hair_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-hair_theorem)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish I had the knowledge to understand more, dark matter is so fascinating. I have a feeling that once we figure out what it is a lot of stuff in quantum physics is going to be easier to figure out.

<comment><USER5> Recommended watch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for this, any more videos you'd recommend?</comment></comment></comment>


Spanish News Publishers' Association Asks Gov to Help Stop Google News Closure - <AUTHOR> https://www.thespainreport.com/13199/spanish-newspaper-publishers-association-now-asks-government-help-stop-google-news-closure/

<comment><USER2> Jeez. So do they have any proposed solution beyond "government intervention"? It's a fact that Google isn't going to pay to host Spanish news, nor can the government force them to do that. So either they need to

1\. amend the law saying that Google is an exception, OR

2\. amend the law to make payment for news snippets no longer an "inalienable right", OR

3\. repeal the law.

Which in the end brings back the exact situation that was there before the law.

EDIT: Just realized that number 1 doesn't count. I don't think you can make an inalienable right and an exception to that right at the same time.

<comment><USER3> In Germany all major publisher, including those that fought to get a similar law, signed contracts with Google allowing them to index without pay. All small aggregators and search engines still have to pay so the end result is that Google News Germany is more powerful than before. I expect something similar in Spain.

<comment><USER2> Yup, exactly. The only reason it didn't happen in Spain right away is the "inalienable right" clause, so that publisher's couldn't sign away the right to be paid. If that goes away, it'll be the same situation as Germany.

<comment><USER4> This seems like a bizarre law. I assume that it only applies to news publishers, so that you can still publish open-source software or put CC licences on your own photos without needing to demand payment?

<comment><USER2> I haven't read the law itself, but I assume it only applies to news publishing. Simply banning the right to give your content out for free would be extremely broad and overly stupid for any government to do legally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My guess is that Spanish media pushed Spanish government for getting a "compensation" like the French publishers got -or will get- (60 € million) because of Google News operating in France. Google said, no, and then, the Spanish News Publishers' Association became worried because that would hurt them. So, they played a bluff, and they lost. Great victory for Google.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion on the closure of Google News in Spain: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8732859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8732859)

</comment><comment><USER6> If I were Google, I would start charging a fee for being indexed in Google news.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sigh. Dinosaurs stuck in their mindset continue to watch as their businesses disappear into the tarpits.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is my comment [dead]? - <AUTHOR>

I have submitted few URLs in a comment thread and my comment is showing as dead,
Here is the comment,
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6490472
What could be the reason?
You may need to turn on your showdead option to see the comment.
[EDIT: It is not dead anymore. But the question remains, what could be the reason? too many URLs?] <comment><USER2> Many links, You must have raised some spam alarm.

</comment><comment><USER2> It is undead now.</comment>


Awesome Modern C++ - <AUTHOR> https://awesomecpp.com/ <comment><USER2> Out of my personal go-to c++ libs, the only ones I missed are the stb libraries ([https://github.com/nothings/stb/](https://github.com/nothings/stb/), in particular the image ones are very popular) and maybe ImGui, but that might be too niche.

Also I would love to have a nice c++ lib for uuids. It's in boost of course.. but well that's boost. Outside of that there is one, but it requires GSL.

<comment><USER3> stb is C89 though and this site seems to be focusing on C++ stuff.

<comment><USER4> The site focuses on C++11 and newer. AFAIK Dear ImGui is almost C code, using just a few C++98 features.</comment></comment></comment>


How Corporate Greed Is Trying to Kill Apple Pay - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/how-corporate-greed-is-trying-to-kill-apple-pay-1651233601

<comment><USER2> > When Apple Pay launched last week, it was a huge step towards the pay-with- > your-phone future that's been in the works for years.

Decide which one. Either it was a huge step forward, or similar system was already deployed. And small hint: we already have some nation-wide systems of this type in Europe.</comment>


How do you find a web designer for your web startup? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone knows who the y-comb startups use? Most of them have decent designs and they're on a small budget. What's their secret?

<comment><USER2> They're all designed by different people. Though in a sense they all use me, since I nag them to fix the more egregious design mistakes.

<comment><AUTHOR> They're lucky, and you're doing a great nagging job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use elance.com. I post my projects there and they bid.

<comment><USER4> First, use a web designer, not a graphics/print designer. You won't regret it.

You can try sites like CreativeHotLink.com or Craigslist.org

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I meant. Corrected the title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ive used these guys. Low cost, solid quality.

<http://monvia.com/>

<comment><USER6> How is that a design firm? From their homepage: _MonVia is a business and technology accelerator built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs._

And the "What we do" page only mentions design in passing: <http://monvia.com/whatwedo.html>

Given what they claim to do, who frequents news.yc, the fact that this is your only comment (or post) and how out of context this recommendation seems to be, you're setting off some serious spam flags. Assuming you deserve the benefit of the doubt : Care to clarify or point us to their web design wing?</comment></comment>


Millions were in germ war tests (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience

<comment><USER2> Oh great, now the chem trail nuts are really going to think they're right.</comment>


Build Your Own 8x4 Foot Whiteboard for $15 (Instead of $200+) - <AUTHOR> https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/build-your-own-8x4-foot-whiteboard-for-15-dollars-instead-of-200 <comment><USER2> Not to be pedantic but haven't our open-office plans shown us that a lot of non-porous surfaces can be used a whiteboard including glass, formaldehyde(as seen in the article), and even most thin gloss plastics?

I could totally be wrong of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't want to try and mount an 8 foot by 4 foot piece of glass on my wall, and I'm guessing the contrast would be a lot worse than the recommended material in the article.

All I know is, you can walk into any Home Depot and for $15 bucks, walk out with the supplies you need to easily amount it onto any wall in about 5-10 minutes.</comment></comment>


See(), an alternative to Python's dir() - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/inky/see/tree/master

<comment><USER2> If you like this, you'll love ipython.

Ipython makes introspection 3.14 times more fun.

<comment><USER3> ipython rocks with the tab completion, is that what you mean? This is better than ipython's ? and ??.

<comment><USER4> I use

import readline, rlcompleter; readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

(executed at PYTHONSTARTUP) for tab completion.

<comment><USER3> Thankyou for this, added to my portable remote node setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Installed, I like it. I do a lot of one-off Python with unfamiliar libs and that's just the thing.

Mapped it to der() ... because that just feels better, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Help us out here, Computer. This just will not cut it. Blimey!"

I enjoyed their documentation style.

</comment><comment><USER6> ehh, this is just (questionable) formatting. After you use python for a while, the __methods__ should become pretty common-sensical (and seeing the actual __name__ is more useful if you're trying to reimplement protocols common objects support). That and not being able to manipulate the output of see() makes it pretty useless.

I personally like doing things like [f for f in dir(o) if 'foo' in f] etc.

<comment><USER7> This was only intended as an alternative, not a replacement -- dir() is still extremely useful. see() was made for quickly inspecting objects interactively, hence "for humans only".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice idea. I decided I'd rather see it laid out in columns like 'ls' does, and with the attribute names unchanged. Here's the result: [http://github.com/darius/columnize/blob/69d2b1c084ab3fc7c72d...](http://github.com/darius/columnize/blob/69d2b1c084ab3fc7c72d1809e511661e2677d995/columnize.py)

</comment><comment><USER9> In case someone else is an Arch Linux user and wants to use this, I uploaded a pkgbuild to AUR.

<http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=24014></comment>


Encouraging News About Coronavirus Immunity - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/18/encouraging-news-about-coronavirus-immunity <comment><USER2> there has been news as recently as yesterday in Indian media that they found couple of people who had earlier recovered from Covid around 2 months ago, got reinfected. infact as per one news report one of them even died the second time around. so probably it is too early and we don't have enough data to predict anything accurately.</comment>