Why Spotify Pays So Little - <AUTHOR> http://lit.vulf.de/spotify-so-little/ <comment><USER2> Like others in this thread, I naively assumed this was how Spotify already worked, and wondered why the payouts tended to be so low. Now it makes sense, and puts the numbers here ([http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify- explained/](http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/)) in context.

Realistically, it would be both hard to change structurally and a hard sell for major labels to give up what is effectively _a subsidy of popular music by indie fans._ Let's take the author's thought experiment to its logical extreme:

Imagine "Terry" listened to just one obscure band for the entire month of February. $7 of his $10 subscription fee is going to artists, but let's say he's also the only fan of that band on Spotify. So that band has effectively zero percent of Spotify's plays for the month, meaning that the band gets effectively zero percent of Spotify's monthly revenue.

Terry thinks $7 went to his favorite band, but it actually got divided up among February's top 40, with only a fraction of a fraction of a cent going to the band!

<comment><USER3> But there's an impedance mismatch here. The copyright holders are being paid per-play but the users are paying all-you-can-eat. That's always going to be an imbalance. The only way to "fix" that would be to charge "Terry" a cent per listen like a jukebox.

This is a bit like being a vegetarian at a buffet and complaining about your admission fee paying for steak which all those other people are eating. It's true, but you came to the buffet because it was _much cheaper_ than a la carte with better service.

<comment><USER2> That's not how Spotify works, though. According to the link above:

      Every time somebody listens to a song on Spotify it generates payments, but Spotify does not calculate royalties based upon a fixed "per play" rate.

Unless there are some secret deals being struck for fixed per-stream royalties that Spotify isn't admitting to publicly, every rightsholder gets a percentage of monthly revenue. Which sounds fair, until you consider long-tail producers and consumers, for whom the marketplace is distorted by this model.

Your buffet analogy isn't really apt here because streams aren't limited resources, and they all have the same effective wholesale cost to Spotify (again, assuming no secret deals).

<comment><USER4> >> "...assuming no secret deals..."

You're totally right on the merits, but it's worth noting that the big record labels are composed entirely of and built their empire solely upon unjust- seeming secret deals, and we have no reason to believe that they've stopped that modus operandi now merely because they're dealing with Spotify.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, there were secret deals with record labels in which Spotify gave up 'some amount' of equity to majors in order to be able to stream their catalogs....along with an upfront sum of course.

I think the real problem that isn't being discussed is the fact that on a service such as Spotify it is impossible for an artist to be independent, his/her efforts WILL support majors via their equity in streaming services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> His proposition may sound simple to him, but it really isn't.

It becomes very hard to ensure you are being paid properly in his proposed scenario, I would personally expect it would create even more controversy, or extremely long payment records every month for artists.

For instance say we have 500 paid users. Lets call them user1 through user500. Each user listens to the same number of songs a month as the value following the word user in their name. Then we have 500 different rates at which artists are paid for their song playing ranging from the entire monthly fee to 1/500th the monthly fee. Therefore providing a full accounting of each of those rates would be necessary for an artist to understand why they got paid more the month they had a single play than the month they had 400 plays.

To be fair assuming the minimum song length on Spotify is 30 seconds this record provided to artists would have a max length of (31 * 24 * 60 * 2)+1 = 89281 items for premium users plus items for add supported users if they did not overlap exactly in rate. Assuming all Premium users paid the same rate, which is not the case.

Edit: I ignored the 0 listen use case, as well as spotify's 30% cut to simplify an already complicated 'simple proposal'. I also forgot to account for daylight savings time in which a day can have 25 hours.

<comment><USER7> Complex accounting isn't a good reason to pay artists unfairly.

Having said that, the accounting doesn't have to be that complex:

1\. When paying out an artist, list out the (anonymous) users who listened to their music on Spotify.

2\. For each user:

a) Show the what percent of the user's total listening was spent listening to that artist. (e.g. 40%)

b) Multiply the amount the user paid by the percentage from (a). (e.g. $10/month * 40% = $4)

3\. Sum all of the amounts from #2. (e.g. $4 + $3 + ... = $total)

Also, accounting would only be a problem for Spotify. 99% of artists would prefer this model, even if it meant more complex accounting.

<comment><USER8> It might not be complicated, but it's cumbersome as hell: "Hey, Rhianna, here's your 65-million line payment breakdown for the week! I know it used to just be one simple intuitive calculation, but isn't this great!?"

> 99% of artists would prefer this model, even if it meant more complex > accounting.

What are you basing that on?

Artists paid more might not complain, and those paid less (likely the more popular artists) would complain. Then there are new artists, growing artists, and people who would just be annoyed by the complexity.

The theory is simple, but the implementation is a complete nightmare.

<comment><USER9> If only we had some kind of machine that was capable of computing these complex models for us...

EDIT: my point being, if the model is fairer, we can deal with a little extra complexity.

<comment> mark-r It's a zero sum game. Spotify isn't going to pay any more in total, no matter how the rules change. That means for every winner under a new scheme, there will be a loser. If those losers are the popular artists that the service can't exist without, you have a non-starter.

<comment><USER10> > _That means for every winner under a new scheme, there will be a loser._

No, that doesn't follow. Imagine one artist is receiving all the money, and the other 10,000 artists are receiving none. Spotify could move to another payment model that would result in 10,000 winners and one loser.

<comment><USER11> Not really. Right now streaming services barely manage to pay even the top artists anything meaningful. This scheme would mean everyone gets paid barely anything, and the bigger artists may leave, which is an existential threat to the business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Vulfpeck is also the band behind Sleepify[1], the album of ten silent 30s songs which fans looped on Spotify while they slept. Vulfpeck earned $20k as a result and used it to organize a tour.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepify](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepify)

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't you have had to (if a free user) listen to commercials during this? Wouldn't that sort-of defeat the purpose of the silence?

May as well ask people to play some more normal 30s songs and turn off their speakers, avoid being delisted as a non-album.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed that having fans play your music on mute would be just as - if not more - effective, and would work without creating a prime target for banning. But I think in this case it made for a very effective "statement", even if it could've been a more efficient hack.

<comment><USER13> At least for the desktop software, they detect if you turn the volume down quickly, and pause the commercial. Spotify has pretty rude behavior towards their free users, but I suppose they want to push everyone to subscribe.

<comment><USER14> I think it's pretty telling that comments surrounding an article about artists not complaining about getting paid enough people complain about the only method Spotify can implement other than charging you money for the service.

It's not a rude behavior and is within their right when you utilize their service for free.

<comment><USER13> Commercials/advertisements are fine. Allowing over compressed, perceivably louder sounding commercials on their system is annoying. Recognizing that people hate this and trying to prevent people from turning down the volume in reaction to a jarring change in sound is rude.

Being rude to your free users in order to get them to upgrade is a strategy that works (nagware), but is it a better than other strategies?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Two things:

1) I think Ek is right - there isn't much money in the consumption of music. I do believe music is extremely effective at getting people's attention, but outside of that, it's value is much lower than we currently give it credit for.

2) I'm reminded of the TED Talk by Clay Shirky on institutions vs collaboration[0] where he explains power law distribution (watch from 6:01 onward specifically) with regard to photos of Iraq on Flickr. He says (paraphrased) "that figure at the bottom at 10 photos per photographer is a lie. it doesn't matter...the top 10% of the most prolific photographers account for almost 75% of the photos. 80% of the contributors are below the average amount of contributions" This is Spotify in a nutshell. People wan't access to all of the rap music in the world even if they are only going to actually consume 20% of it, so that in the rare chance they listen to one song of the other 80% that it's still made available. In other words, the overall utility of Spotify's system is only valid when it's whole, but the individuals who are necessary for it to be whole are unevenly distributed (in this case number of plays). So the argument then becomes who needs who more?

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQViNNOAkw&t=361](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPQViNNOAkw&t=361)

<comment><USER16> > there isn't much money in the consumption of music

Depends how you consume it. I had to pay nearly £100 to see the Stones live. Online of course you can download it for nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Spotify has been villified since the beginning, and I certainly want a more fair system to exist for artists.

That said, has there EVER been a business model in the US that was profitable for artists? I don't think there was ever money in music for artists from album sales.

The cost of distributing and promoting music is just more expensive than making an album.

<comment><USER18> Is it actually the case that signing record contracts was always a bad deal for artists? I was under the impression that they reduced risk for artists who could then use money from the contract as a more stable source of income to pay for, say, childcare expenses.

<comment><USER19> No, whatever money is paid up front for the expenses (recording, shooting music video, child care while doing such things) must be repaid to the label. If you don't "recoup" enough through album sales, you have to pay them back out of touring...and on and on and on...Basically, just have a look at the following article by Steve Albini:

[http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17](http://www.negativland.com/news/?page_id=17)

<comment><USER20> My brother has been a professional rock musician for almost two decades. Several of his bands have broken up after one or two albums, the recording of which was financed by their label. In those cases, the label simply takes a loss. They're not sending debt collectors out or something.

The recouping terms are set in the contract. It's not conceptually different from the term sheets that govern how and when investors will be paid back when they invest in Internet startups.

There are examples of bad labels screwing artists, and there are examples of good labels supporting artists. The terms, not the concept, of recouping are what it make it good or bad.

Ironically, the more exploitative labels are the ones that have done _better_ under the pressure of piracy, because they are more willing to force bands into "360" deals where every revenue stream is subject to recouping: merch, sync, publishing, tours...basically they own the artist. So they're not hurt much by piracy.

But this is not how all label deals are done. Many smaller and mid-size labels have historically limited their deals and depended more on album revenue. These are the folks--the good, artist-supporting folks--who are being most hurt by piracy.

<comment><USER21> > These are the folks--the good, artist-supporting folks--who are being most > hurt by piracy.

As much as I hate pirates, it isn't the pirates that killed the music industry.

Look at this thread. Most of the people here are not going to spend more than $100 per year on music. That's simply too small a pool for the number of artists that exist.

Think about these same people. They are willing to pay more than $100 for _two_ video games.

Guess which industry is doing better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _Artists are frustrated. And lite listeners should be too._

Artists who don't like it or aren't getting enough value — either through payouts or marketing - should simply opt out of the system (if they can; in many cases control might rest with their record label or another rights holder). Some artists never opted in (the last time I checked, this included AC/DC) or withdrew part or all of their collections (Taylor Swift).

I've watched the Spotify model appear in the ebooks marketplace, through services such as Oyster and Scribd. They target readers, and ultimately seek to ensure large payouts to investors, platform owners, and large publishing partners. Authors have largely been treated as an afterthought. Kindle Unlimited is even worse, demanding exclusivity and lowering sales of many authors.(1)

I believe the time has come for recording artists, filmmakers, authors, and other media producers to band together to fight unfair or predatory platform practices. Subscription services may be great for consumers, but they don't pay enough to the people who are creating the products that draw audiences in the first place.

1\. [http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=202571.0](http://www.kboards.com/index.php?topic=202571.0)

</comment><comment><USER23> Jack Stratton is correct in pointing out that less active users are subsidising active users.

However, he then makes the leap that that means that less popular artists are subsidising the popular ones, which has yet to be proved.

<comment><USER24> I suspect that the paying users are more likely to listen to more obscure indie artists, simply based on the people I know who pay for premium. Anyone interested in listening to only top 40 likely won't see the value in paying $9.99 a month for it. Thus the less popular artists are bringing in the revenue but the big artists keep more money.

That being said, there's no proof of this without data to back it up.

<comment><USER25> If I were to speculate, I would expect the number of times a song is played most likely to adhere to a power law and therefor this average number of streams is not an ideal measure.

And yes, I'd would expect the tail to be fragmented. Lots of people listening to but a small and mutual exclusive set of bands. Next to the odd main stream one.

So perhaps it is not really a question of light users sponsoring heavy ones, but more the banality of average taste.

Would love to see some stats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The proposition in the article only works because users pay a fixed monthly rate for unlimited listening, rather than a charge that is metered based on how much they stream.

Jack Stratton's proposition is wagered on the proposition that the users who listen to his tracks are ones who don't listen to very much other stuff. His listeners pay $9.99 per months, but don't stream very much, and a big chunk of what they do stream is Stratton's material. He doesn't want most of that $9.99 going to those other damn artists, who are just random junk whose material isn't sought out by anyone, but streamed randomly in Yoga classes, elevators, supermarkets or wherever.

If there is some user who paid $9.99, 70% of which is $7 going to the artists, and half of what that user listened to was Stratton's tracks, Stratton wants $3.50 for that month, for that user alone. Add to that other similar users, and extrapolate to twelve months and you have some non-negligible cash at the end of the year: better than a fraction of a cent.

Problem is, no matter how you slice the pie, it is a zero-sum game. There is so much revenue and so many artists. Most artists, likely including Stratton, will lose this zero-sum game no matter how the pie is carved.

There is little difference between 99% of the artists getting peanuts, and 100% of the artists getting peanuts. The proposed rule would just create a tiny group which gets quite a lot more revenue than the rest, at the cost of slightly impoverishing every member of the remaining group, who then gets a slightly smaller fraction of a cent.

It's actually a good rule from Spotify's POV because this tiny group would represent "success stories" which Spotify could use for promotion.

On a different topic, this kind of reminds me of the whiners who complain about online dating sites. _" I'm obviously a more qualified bachelor than most of the losers who make profiles on this site, so if only the implementation of the site were based on somewhat different rules, then I would easily get replies from the women I'm interested in. I might have found a girlfriend long ago if it weren't for this damn dating site. Waaaah ... sniff!"_

<comment><USER27> 3.5$ per user(!, or should I say a fan ) is significantly more than just negligible compared with fractions of a cent for every user.

It is also more correct, your subscription is distributed to artists whose music you actually listened to. It repeat listens are accounted for, then it would be even more fair, since you usually listen more to your favorite artists.

Currently the distribution just isn't correct. This is probably because of technical reasons.

<comment><USER28> Agreed. It would make it possible for a much more democratic music system where the dedication of your fans matters more than sheer numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is the description of Spotify's model to pay artists accurate? It sounds suspiciously simple, free of any special deals with labels to get artists on board etc... (which I had just assumed was a necessary evil)

And do total stream divisions take into account only premium accounts? Or do they also include free ones? Because ya, as a premium user, I really do want (and perhaps naively expected) my $9/mo split between the artists I listen to, which certainly seems the fairest.

<comment><USER30> Money to pay the artists listened to by free users needs to come from somewhere. I don't think artists and rightsholders are willing to accept a lower per-play revenue from free users. Which means I doubt that the ad revenue is enough to support the free accounts without subsidy from paid users. (The ad revenue isn't nothing, and the ads helps encourage conversion to paid user, so they're not without value to Spotify, but I suspect actual paying customers are worth more than free users even though they stream more.) So if you take these two assumptions:

* A stream from a free user pays the same as a stream from a paid user, and

* Paid users bring in more than free users

I don't think Vulf's idea works.

<comment><USER31> You could merge the two ideas to meet in the middle. 35% based on total revenue and 35% based on used revenue.

<comment><USER30> You could, I guess. Why would you want to, if you're Spotify? It's more bookkeeping for no benefit to them. The author believes he's getting hosed because gyms and nail salons are playing Spotify all day over their PAs, but... I'm not sure that's true, and even if they are, those are still plays Spotify has to pay for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think the problem is that there is no distinction made between computer generated playlists (eg: Yoga Radio) and listener initiated streams.

Why not keep the existing royalty structure, but split the royalty pie based on user initiated streams and computer generated streams. If someone buys premium and only listens to Yoga Radio:

      30% Spotify
      70% Existing Yoga Radio Big Pool Royalty Structure

But if 50% of their listening is actual artists they have chosen (download to phone, click on artist/album or song/shared playlist from someone else/own playlist):

      30% Spotify
      35% Existing Yoga Radio Big Pool
      35% Direct cut determined by per-listener chart

Or if Mom signs up and only listens to her kid:

      30% Spotify
      0% Yoga Radio
      70% Direct cut determined by per-listener chart (all to one with love from Mom)

This not only rewards artists with loyal fanbases, but it also fairly compensates artists who compete in the mass market where people just listen to the radio and don't care.

Best of both worlds, no?

</comment><comment><USER33> I thought this (what is proposed) is how they already do it.

I guess not.

It does seem more fair for the artist this way, though it probably means they need to do more crunching with map reduce or something.

</comment><comment><USER34> > Terry is below average. In 2014 he averaged 350 streams per month. If his > subscription money only went to artists he listened to, it would've been > $0.02 per stream.

> Instead it was $0.00786.

This sounds like a much better way to do it. The artists should ask Spotify to change it. However I guess the big players don't really want it changed.

<comment><USER35> I wonder what the average is? Because that per stream rate obviously changes depending on how many streams you listen to. 350 sounds rather small. I listen at work, in the car, sometimes I listen to comedy. I might double that number in which case the difference becomes more and more negligible until I get to the point where I'm paying less per stream then what spotify currently pays. I can see this getting extremely complex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Old geezer here: Does anyone know how often the songs on a CD are played? If I spent $10 on a CD, what was that likely to generate per-play? (I'm old enough that I remember taping LPs and then listening to the tapes -- which was a near-universal practice amongst the folks I knew.)

My guess is that great albums got listened to a lot -- driving down the revenue "per play" but generating great word of mouth and lots of net record/cd sales. How much of that applies to Spotify?

<comment><USER37> I'm happy to play along but first can you give us an idea of the answer(s) will relate to the topic at hand? I'm struggling to find a correlation.

<comment><USER36> I thought it would be interesting to get some kind of historical fix on whether this is really an unfair rate per song, and if so by how much. I'm also curious as to whether "per play" is really the right metric: if I sold you a CD and it sucked, you'd almost never play it so that rate might seem high... but be unimportant because you'd sell so few CDs. How does that translate to the Spotify model?

Maybe this is obvious to others? But not to me.

<comment><USER38> One thing to focus on is that the rate per song in the CD era can't fairly be compared to the rate per song today - particularly for popular songs that have a global reach. I would agree that "per play" is only a partial metric, but would caution against trying to compare too much over time.

<comment><USER36> Then how do we evaluate musicians' claims of not being paid fairly?

<comment><USER38> at the end of the day, it's art...'fair value' is a very unique construct

the main point I was making was that comparing 20 years ago to today in this case is likely not equivalent (at best I would say it's an incomplete view)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Spotify's "all you can listen to" model inherently implies they're going to be used as background music.

Could be worse. They could have their own musicians record popular songs and classics, and just pay the statutory royalty to the composer. Seeburg did that in the 1950s.[1] They sold the Seeburg 1000 background music system, and rented out phonograph records of background music, all recorded by Seeburg musicians. Stores rented and serviced the simple record changer, which endlessly played a stack of 25 records (both sides), about 50 hours of music. It's not a jukebox; it's much simpler.

Instead of copyrighting the disks (back then you had to register a copyright and pay for renewals), they used a primitive form of DRM - the records are 16 2/3 RPM, 9 inch diameter, 2 inch center hole, 0.005" stylus width, mono. This is incompatible with everything except a Seeburg 1000, though it's not hard to adapt a turntable to play them.

Someone has digitized the available Seeburg 1000 records, and you can listen to about 6000 songs of '50s - 70s background music.

[1] [http://radiocoast.com/](http://radiocoast.com/)

</comment><comment><USER40> 1\. As soon as I'm playing more tracks than the number of tracks an average user pays I'm actually paying less than what Spotify currently pays. 2\. People who do not play much music will probably not be exposed to much else than well know artists (Ie. Top 40). Or otherwise said: if I'm into music and spend time discovering not-so well known bands I'll probably play more tracks than the average user. 3\. The number of people who will play less than the average number of tracks will be bigger than the number who play more.

The end result is that rich and well known artists will end up getting more money, and lesser known artists less.

</comment><comment><USER41> If someone started a service that did exactly this, would artists take their music off spotify and onto this new service?

Would the users follow?

<comment><USER42> I have no idea and that is a really good question. So, let's round and say $7.00 a month goes to artists[1]. What is an expected percentage of time fans will listen to the artist's music (25%?) and how many thousand fans does the artist have?

I would imagine Taylor Swift with Blank Space might have cleaned up. Is there a source of public data on this?

1) as in all the people who get paid off the artist's music including, hopefully, the artist

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is an interesting proposition, and one which I'm sure has been thought about and considered by the labels. However, I think people who think this would be better for indie artists are misguided.

The reason this change would very likely not benefit indie artists is simple:

 _People who listen to more music are more likely to have a high proportion of their music listening being "indie" than those people listening to less._

Pdpi's example explains very nicely how this would benefit pop artists over indie.

 _Does this system have other benefits?_

Yes, a wonderful inadvertent thing you get for free is eliminating fraud listening. People would be unable to create accounts to listen to one artist on repeat all month long and laugh six months later when the checks come in (see the Vulfpeck story for those unfamiliar)

 _Would some indie artists benefit from the change?_

Yes, of course some artists wouldbenefit, that's pretty much inevitable under any calculation methodology change.

None of this addresses the issue of time spent listening. Classical and Jazz payouts will consistently under-index people's time spent listening simply because the track recordings are so much longer than the average recording length. A time spent listening payout system would be a huge improvement, but then you can imagine people trying to manipulate this (throwing 25 minutes of silence on the last track of the album anyone?). Smoke and mirrors...

</comment><comment><USER44> It's incredible that there's no money in a thing that has been a need for the human being for centuries. Actually entertainment in general, has been a need since the origin of our species.

The indie music industry as a whole is already selling more than the 3 major record labels together in the US. Once that 20th century model is 100% over, we will see technology doing really cool things in collaboration with music.

<comment><USER45> Technology collaborations are limited to a very narrow subset of music. As an often acoustic/folk musician, I expect collaboration to be a same-space realtime thing. Classical, jazz, and most rock musicians have the same limitations. You need very high bandwidth communication - subtle visual cues as well as audio cues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The real truth here is music is becoming cheaper and cheaper to make. A few grand worth of equipment is all that is required to generate most of the stuff you probably listen to, and if that isn't the case now it will be in what 5? 10 years?

Also think about the talent pool. The only longer line at the job fair is probably for playboy photographer.

Tons of people wanting to make music + low barrier to entry = Cheap music

The only thing attempting to hold this dinosaur market afloat is monolithic record companies, and their stranglehold on the popular genre seems to give them enough leverage to arrange a deal in their favor. Hence what we observe here.

What will likely end up happening is the next cost of music will become zero to the end user and bands and artists will find new revenue streams. Such as live performances, or perhaps product placement. Or does economics not apply to art?*

*I'm the weird guy who doesn't like music so I may be entirely wrong.

</comment><comment><USER47> There's some audio content that fits Spotify model better, since it's optimized for endless replays

* dance/electronic

* elevator music

* toddler songs (audience loves hearing that same song for 1,000th time)

On the other end of the spectrum you have audio content that is intended to be listened to once, with extremes being audio books and radio news.

An artist optimizing for endless replays would do well on Spotify: "E.D.M. artists like Avicii and David Guetta are seeing payouts in the millions. Avicii's "Wake Me Up," the most streamed song on Spotify, has more than three hundred million spins, which, using Spotify's benchmark per-stream rate, would be worth about two million dollars to the rights holders." [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/revenue- streams](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/revenue-streams)

But it's not perfect model for every artist out there.

<comment><USER48> I love you you put dance/eletronic, elevator music and toddler songs in one bucket. I never thought of it that way and I think you're spot on. I guess we could add most of the music played on commercial radio stations (from top 40 to soft rock) as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Why are light listeners like the example paying for Spotify? Shouldn't they just stick to the free version rather than going for premium?

Following this suggested model, free users listening wouldn't help the artists at all - is that really desirable?

<comment><USER50> To answer your first question, mobile usability is limited with the free version (e.g. can only shuffle play, can't play straight through an album). Should they stick to the free version? That's a value proposition that can only be answered by the user.

>Following this suggested model, free users listening wouldn't help the artists at all - is that really desirable? I doubt it. Paid users are usually free users first. No free users means fewer paid users down the line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Spotify should set aside X% of their equity and distribute it to artists. Each full play of a track would generate one 'artist' share. Then when they exit each artist gets their fair share. For example (to keep it simple I will use small numbers) let's say there are 100 plays in total on Spotify before they sell up, 1 of which belongs to Vulpeck (awesome band) then Vulpeck get 1% of X%. This way everyone gets paid fairly. The way it is now Spotify are basically monetising piracy. All the major labels have invested and are waiting for their pay day while the people who produce the content get shafted.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't see much discussion of Spotify's role in setting their subscription pricing. I think this is an area where artists have a legitimate gripe.

For example, in a hypothetical world let's say Spotify could capture a high amount of market share and still be profitable at $0.10/month. If they had the same revenue split they could say that they are giving artists 70% (0.07/month). I think the artists would rightfully complain that Spotify is devaluing their product.

Artists like Taylor Swift are starting to catch on but people act like she's greedy and out of touch when she pulls her catalog.

</comment><comment><USER53> Am I the only one here who is tired by artist complaining that we don't sufficiently support their preferred lifestyle? Also, the whole argument is straw-man, read what "pjc50" wrote.

<comment><USER54> > Am I the only one here who is tired by artist complaining that we don't > sufficiently support their preferred lifestyle? Also, the whole argument is > straw-man, read what "pjc50" wrote.

No, it's completely irrelevant. This is a discussion about a pricing model, not about an artists' lifestyle. Unless you want to think of the choices of artists whether to distribute on Spotify or not, depending on the pricing model, to be a 'lifestyle'.

As for what pjc50 wrote, no, he didn't quite get the point of the article.

Yes, perhaps the most equitable way to charge is for artists to set a price for 1 stream, or 1 permanent download (iTunes).

But the Copyright holders are NOT being paid 'per-play'. Sure, they're paid more when the plays go up, but that's not necessarily indicative or a 'per play' model. Just like your gas station doesn't sell gas 'per mile' you drive, yet if you drive an extra mile you obviously pay more at the gas station than if you didn't drive that mile.

Spotify is not a pay per play model for copyright holders. It's a pay-by-share model. This means that if 10 people are subscribed, and they all play two songs 10 times, the copyright holder gets as much money as when these 10 people played both songs 100 times each.

Both songs get 50% of the artist revenue each, in both cases, which is 70% of 10x $10 subscriptions worth, which is $35 each per song, whether both are played once, or 10 times, or 100 times, no difference.

Obviously NOT pay-per-play but pay-by-share.

If it was pay-per-play then there'd be an actual difference in the songs' revenue if both songs were played 10 times or 100 times. Not the case with Spotify.

Now, this is what the article is about:

There are multiple (here just 2) ways to implement pay-by-share.

1) You total up ALL plays on Spotify, and ALL revenue. So say you have $1m of subscription revenue, and 1 million song plays in total. You then pay out artists the fraction of their plays. Got 10 plays? 10 plays / 10m total plays * 1m revenue = $1, that's your revenue.

2) PER USER, you total all the user plays, and take the $10 subscription, and then pay out the artists as a fraction of how much the artist listened to that particular user. Artist got 30 plays, user played songs 100 times? You take 30 user-plays / 100 user-plays * $10 = $3, that's the artist's revenue.

Is there a difference? The assumption is yes.

The assumption is that some music, like classical music, gets fewer average plays by classical music lovers, than an average pop song. i.e. a classic music lover might listen intently to a 15 minute song, and then another, and have 30 minutes of music, and generate 2 plays.

And a pop song that's 3 minutes long, will get played 5x in that 15 minute period. And instead of 30 minutes of conscious listening, it'll be on in the background for hours and hours as it's made for radio. So you get 4 hours of 3 minute songs, that's 80 plays.

Now say there's 1 pop lover, and 1 classic music lover. And say both categories have 2 artists that get listened equally.

In model 1, you'd have 1 classic music lover listening to 2 classic artists and generate 2x 2 plays per day = 4 plays. And the pop lover generates 2x 80 plays is 160 plays, for a total of 164 plays. The two music lovers both pay $10, so you get $20, and the two pop artists both take home their 80 play share out of a total of 164 plays on $20, or: $9.75. The classic music artists take home 2 plays / 164 total plays * $20 each = 24c.

In this model 1, we see that the classic music lover that pay $10, is subsidizing the pop artists with a huge fraction of his $10, despite the fact he only listens to classical music.

But in pricing model 2, the two classic artists would each get 50% of the share of the classic music lover: $5. And the pop artists would both get $5, too. Only there'd still be more pop song lovers, so they'd still make a ton more money because which is fine, as again there are more pop song lovers. But then there'd also be more pop artists, so there'd be more competition.

Neither models are pay-per-play. They're both pay-per-share. But in model two, the classic music lover who plays 0 pop music, is paying 0% of his money to pop songs. While in model 1, over 90% of his money goes to pop songs which is being called a subsidy for songs that are shorter, more culturally fit to play as background music/noise.

In model 2, obscure, less popular, longer songs, songs with fewer average plays etc, get a decent bit of revenue, because they compete for revenue shares of users who listen to other like minded music, and thus they compete against other obscure, less popular (in absolute numbers), longer songs, songs with fewer average plays etc.

I think it's clearly a more fair approach. And I think it's clear it has nothing to do with 'preferred lifestyle', and the argument is certainly no straw hat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I think it depends on who the artist is. For the most popular the artists wouldn't be complaining about being paid too little.

Either way if a formula change, distributing earnings based on an individual user instead of the whole pool, means the popular songs would earn far less.

It also means if someone listens to one song that would earn more than someone who loves music and pays the same thing!

I would argue the formula isn't wrong its difficult comparing an total Audio CD sales vs a lifetime NPV of music played on Spotify for an author.

<comment><USER56> > For the most popular the artists wouldn't be complaining about being paid > too little.

Taylor Swift did just that recently and pulled her music from Spotify because she didn't feel she was fairly compensated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not clear on what the difference would be, from his explanation. Is he splitting by "artists listened to ignoring count of times streamed"? (So someone who listens to _only_ vulfpeck 1000 times and Daft Punk once pays each $5)

Or is it "for each user, divide their $10 by the number of streams they played and pay that to the copyright holder of the streams played?" So the more streams you listen to the less artists get paid for that?

<comment><USER57> > Or is it "for each user, divide their $10 by the number of streams they > played and pay that to the copyright holder of the streams played?" So the > more streams you listen to the less artists get paid for that?

I think his solution works like this:

Lets say you listen to Beck for 50 times, Beyonce 50 times, and Drake 100 times. That gives you 200 total streams, which a respective stream distribution of 25%, 25% and 50%. We can assume you enjoyed Drake more since you listened to him more so he should get more money obviously. So Beck and Beyonce each get $7 * (0.25) = $1.75 and Drake gets $3.50 for the month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> If you want to support your favorite music artists, send them money directly. That's basically the only way you can ensure a reasonable portion goes into their pocket.

Services like Spotify don't support independent, awesome musicians that you love enough to give them even a bad living. If someone creates art that touches you and improves your life, figure out a way to support them in a way that actually makes a difference.

</comment><comment><USER59> His final comment "and listeners should be to0.", I'm not sure I understand?

How does Terry's subsidization of yoga studios make any difference for Terry's listening experience?

Unless it's a very deep point in that Terry's subsidization, if it didn't happen, would cause more small artists to pop up onto the scene thus increasing the diversity of the catalog.

</comment><comment><USER60> This is a terrible idea, in my opinion. It would effectively cause users to "budget" the music they play, e.g.: "If I play that Rihanna song after playing 10 songs from my favorite indie band this month, it'll severely dilute the money going to them." The last thing Spotify wants is people not playing music for moral reasons.

<comment><USER61> I'd suggest that almost none of the users would be aware of this anyway, so their usage patterns wouldn't in any way shift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Any discussion of how to split revenues is pointless without data about what paying users listen to. Top 40 listeners may percentage-wise be a much lower paying audience. Lots of the top 40 is aimed at teen/youth users, who have lots of hardware given to them, but not lots of subscription revenue or credit cards necessarily.

</comment><comment><USER63> Spotify should create app store-like programs, where artists can choose to "self-publish" and get 70 percent of the revenue. If they are already doing that, then maybe they should promote it more, because I'm not hearing about too many artists joining such a program. Most still use Spotify through labels.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Site appears to be buckling under the load, here's the Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JiivGj-...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JiivGj- Vg10J:lit.vulf.de/spotify-so-little/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER64> Splitting with everyone is better because it gets the majors on Spotify which you need to give the service legitimacy.

Major studios are bringing brands to Spotify, indies are draws but aren't big draws. They will put their stuff on Soundcloud and stream it for free to get ears to get concerts.

<comment><USER37> I don't follow. Why does splitting revenue amongst millions of people provide a boon for the major studios (thus making splitting everyone better)? You say it's better but I don't see the an elaboration on the why.

<comment><USER65> I'm pretty sure the commenter meant better for Spotify's bottom line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I have started a petition on change.org for this, please sign it:

[https://www.change.org/p/spotify-ltd-pay-artists-from-the- pe...](https://www.change.org/p/spotify-ltd-pay-artists-from-the-people-that- listen-to-them)

Suggestions for improvements welcome.

</comment><comment><USER67> Question: If spotify isn't a good deal for indy artist, why don't they all abandon the platform and use an alternative? Like Bandcamp, which you mentioned pays 8x. Come on artists, I dare you to?! :) Or are you afraid of subverting the dominant paradigm?

<comment><USER68> Because they can use both?

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> The OP's idea does make some sense but so does Spotify's current scheme. The one area where there should absolutely be differentiated pricing is "radio- style" listens vs on demand listens (which should generate much more revenue for artist).

</comment><comment><USER70> I would love for a portion of my Spotify subscription to be discretionary, so I could proactively reward bands I love. In fact, I would gladly pay $2-5 extra a month for this feature.

Here's how it could work. Every month, I'd get an email with the top 20 artists I listened to that month (stats! fun!). By default, my contribution goes to my most listened artist. I don't need to do a thing.

If I want, I can manually go in and change the contribution to another artist – say I listened to the new Kanye album a ton, but would rather give my extra dollars to my second-most-listened, way-less-famous artist.

I believe a lot of people get real personal value out of supporting artists they believe in. Right now, the best way to do this is to go to shows and buy merch.

Optional donations as describe above are an opportunity for Spotify to increase the amount of money spent on music, while generating lots of goodwill from users and artists alike.

</comment><comment><USER71> In the 90s I bought hundreds of CDs that cost $20-$25 each, inflation adjusted. Now albums are delivered at better than CD quality, and cost only $10. Supporting the music you love is cheaper than it's ever been. Why opt out of it?

</comment><comment><USER72> > Normal listeners are subsidizing yoga studios that play Spotify all day.

I didn't go thorugh Spotify's TOS, but is it allowed for commercial settings such as stores, studios, etc? I'd think the price would be for personal use only.

</comment><comment><USER73> From another perspective, should artists all artists give up the same 30% to Spotify? Or should artists who benefit disproportionately from services like Discovery and Radio, presumably lesser-known artists, pay more?

</comment><comment><USER74> If Spotify or Google Music switched to the suggested model, or at least 50/50 suggested/current way - I'd happily subscribe IMMEDIATELY - probably even pay a family plan. Please?

</comment><comment><USER75> The Top-40 pop song probably has quite limited shelf life. It gets lots of plays for now, but some other track can make money for next 20-50+ years.

</comment><comment><USER76> Venues playing music to their customers have to pay public performance license fees as well, so that skews the popular music subsidies even more?

</comment><comment><USER77> Licensed Use of Master — $0.00668

I can imagine this licensing fee differs largely and contributes heavily to Vulfpeck's anecdote.

</comment><comment><USER78> At least for google play music, it will pop up a window if you don't interact with the web page for a few hours.

</comment><comment><USER79> Streaming:

\+ Huge catalogue on-demand

\- Lower quality

\- Latency, dropped streams

\- Monthly subscription

\- Artists get next to nothing

\- Player lock-in

Hard disk:

\+ Zero latency

\+ Highest quality

\+ Artists get everything

\+ Any player

\- Device storage limitations

\- Heavy file transfers

I never understood why streaming caught on to begin with.

<comment><USER80> For streaming you forgot:

\+ Easy discovery (find an artist and play instantly without any download)

\+ Your saved albums are available on any device instantly

\+ No catalog/file management (important for mobile listening, as transferring new music was always a hassle)

\+ Professional curation, social playlists

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Why not charge the listener per song play and pay the artist 70% of each play?

</comment><comment><USER82> I can't help but feel that all of these complaints about low pay etc are just a symptom of the new reality. I don't really understand what people are expecting here. Distribution costs are minimal, audience is (kind-of) locked- in, discovery is relatively simple. The risk is almost entirely on Spotify's end of things, rather than the artists. Yes, without the artists, Spotify doesn't have a business - but without digital streaming services like Spotify, users could easily end up under an iTunes monopoly which probably wouldn't be good for anybody (although I believe - may be wrong, but please correct me - that iTunes does give artists a better deal currently?). The world is going digital, and people want to stream stuff. That's just a fact. Sure, many people will always buy CDs and LPs, but there being 'no money' in recording music is hardly a new phenomenon - people have complained about it for years before digital streaming was even a thing.

I really do have sympathy that there isn't much money in recorded music, but I do struggle to find a justification for why artists seem to think Spotify should be paying them more other than the fact that they just 'want' it and need to make a living. I understand that completely - and honestly I'd probably pay a higher price for Spotify if they demanded it and the extra money went to artists.

I think the problem is this: the music industry in general has exploited artists for years. It is not a business that works in the artist's favour, unless those artists are extremely popular (and even then, labels can seriously fuck artists over if they want to). Outside of the superstars, musicians may (not always, but often) fare better when they organise their own affairs - live performances, commissions for work, appearances, media, collaborations etc. They probably won't get super-rich doing this, but it could be a decent income for the right artists. What we have instead is a situation where artists create music for a (more or less) one time cost (recording, mastering, equipment, studio time etc) and then hope to make the money back through physical sales, royalties, and performances. The problem, I feel, is that the initial costs of production are still high, but the distribution costs are now incredibly low, which means end-consumers are reluctant to pay higher prices. I don't see any way around this other than altering the nature of the business itself. If production is always going to be a costly affair in the music world, then income from royalties through services like Spotify are destined to be considered low.

I honestly think there's no real hope for any significant increase in income through digital services. Why should there be? There's no technical reason to increase fees - distribution gets cheaper all the time. The only way to increase royalty payments generally is to either cut into profits, or pass the increase on to the customer - neither of which are sensible business decisions unless Spotify's hand is forced.

We don't really have a profitable relationship with music - the value we attach to a single track on iTunes or Spotify doesn't reflect at all the costs to the artist - but unless artists can convince consumers to start paying a lot more, I just don't think they'll see significant returns from recorded music any time in the forseeable future. It's just not an industry that pays particularly well. Production costs are high, distribution costs are low. Unless we alter the way music is produced, performed, and experienced, people won't feel like paying more gives them any extra value. It's an uphill battle.

I wish things were better for artists, but I just don't see a way out of this is that doesn't involve massively increasing price at the point of consumption.

</comment><comment><USER83> Does anyone have any information on how Google Music does it?

I love Google Music, and don't understand why everyone's so hopped up on Spotify, just because they were "first" to market (and they weren't).

<comment><USER84> Google Music does it the same way: [https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist- terms.html](https://play.google.com/intl/ALL_ALL/about/artist-terms.html)

""" (a) "Subscription Fees" shall be the greater of:

(A): Monthly Subscription Minimum * number of Google Play music subscription service subscribers on the last day of such month * Your Subscription Activity Ratio

\-- OR --

(B): Subscription Revenue Share * Music Subscription Revenue * Your Subscription Activity Ratio """

B is exactly what is laid out in the parent article, A is a subtle twist on it. Both of them are still [Google's revenue] * Your Subscription Activity Ratio, where "Your Subscription Activity Ratio" == "the fraction: (i) the numerator of which shall be the total number of streams and plays of Your Tracks from the Google Play music subscription service; and (ii) the denominator of which will be the total number of streams and plays of all tracks from the Google Play music subscription service."

<comment><USER85> So does this mean that an artist makes more money when I /don't/ choose Google Music, because they get paid per advertisement shown when I load their video?

... this makes me sad.

<comment><USER84> not even close! you'd have to watch the video more than a thousand times, each of those views having a pre-roll video ad before it, and never skipping thru the pre-roll video ad.

realistically, this means the artist would have to get more than fifty thousand streams _per month_ to equal just _one_ subscriber.

<comment><USER84> It won't let me edit, but I realized my comment is not clearly worded. You, as a listener, would have to listen to more than fifty thousand streams in one month to "pay" Google an amount of ad revenue equivalent to the Google Music monthly subscription rate. So unless you listen to more than 1500 YouTube tracks per day, you're better off paying (if your goal is to support the artist).

There's just not enough money in ads. This is why things like Patreon exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Radio never paid much for users either. The problem is nobody buys albums any more.

I think that's because buying a digital album has so far been really unrewarding.

Artists need to come up with a package for their music that people actually want to buy.

<comment><USER48> As a start, correct ID3 tags and an album cover bigger than the size of a thumbnail would be great. Bonus points for configurable folder and file naming scheme and playlists generation upon download.

I always felt kinda stupid paying 10 Euros for an album, then spending 10 minutes fixing metadata and downloading a halfway decent cover image from discogs.

You'd get better data quality from filesharing sources, since fans obviously care more about releases than labels. Same goes for movie releases btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Conventional music albums were known for only giving a small percentage of its sale value (minus retail and such, of course) to the actual artists. There didn't seem to be much fuss around that. But now that artists are getting a raw deal when it comes to streaming their music, it's practically a crime against humanity.

I guess the "artists are being ripped off when it comes to record sales" blew over several decades ago.

</comment><comment><USER88> anecdote time: recently i my closest friends happen to be all musicians. I often try to get their opinion on piracy and online radios while selfishly trying to see a product idea... and their general opinion on online radios is that spotify is the god among them and that i'm evil and killing their industry for using pandora.</comment>


Uber Experiments With A Courier Service In New York City - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/uberrush/?ncid=twittersocialshare <comment><USER2> I was expecting the service to utilize uber drivers between picking up and dropping of traditional customers the same way commercial jets carry airfreight. None the less I think it will be interesting to see if business will switch to uber from their traditional couriers.

<comment><USER3> In NYC where parking is scarce, bikes and runners make more sense than cars for the kind of service we're looking to offer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it a no questions asked delivery as long as it is within the size limit? (Drugs?)

<comment><USER5> This is the first thing that popped into my mind when I read it was a 24/7 delivery service for only $15.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This may be a classic "bad idea" without some additional layers of security for precisely the reason you might intuit, drugs and other contraband. I have been a heavy user of courier services in the recent past (having been involved with media/PR agencies) and I know from experience that courier services in NYC do not and will not work with you if you haven't set up an account and/or don't have a physical place of business for them to pick up from. Try walking into a courier company's office with a package in hand and they won't take it from you without an established account.

Granted, you could argue that makes for a business opportunity for Uber, but in my experience as a long time NYC resident when you see safety measures and precautions like that which are ubiquitous to business practices there's usually a reason, namely that if there's any way at all to take advantage of a situation in this city there will always be 11 people lined up to do it within seconds.

<comment><USER7> Uber itself requires an account, so it's not that different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can I send my kids to daycare through this?

How is it different to existing courier services - just has a better consumer reach, or will it be cheaper/available where couriers are not today? Are they disrupting any existing regulation? Is my stuff insured when they take it? Can i track the courier on a GPS?

<comment><USER9> You can do this in Uber's current state. There are already people sending their kids to school with Uber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting idea, but it feels very weird to have it in the Uber taxi app. They need to get a better strategy if they want to continue diversifying.

<comment><USER11> I'm assuming that it's something to launch and test the offer. Once they've cleared a few assumptions (Is it the same customer base as historical coursier, _i.e._ office managers, or like Uber, are they addressing a new group?) they will most likely launch a separate interface: Facebook has done that quite well with regards to its messaging service. Following Amazon Dash, it might not even be an app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This should be interesting - especially with all the delivery startups which were created following uber's success.

</comment><comment><USER13> I would not be surprised if they scoop up and acquire Postmates in the next 12-18 months.

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh that's uber innovative.</comment>


Tomorrow at MIT: Vipassana Meditation and The Scientific World-View - <AUTHOR> http://www.dhara.dhamma.org/boston/

<comment><AUTHOR> ...since meditation posts are a recurring theme. this guy is a good speaker, as is vipassana the real deal. there are worse ways to spend and hour or two if this is something at interests you.</comment>


How I've started to contribute to open source - <AUTHOR> http://blog.binarybalance.com.au/2011/05/25/how-i%27ve-started-to-contribute-to-open-source

<comment><USER2> It's funny. It really took me committing something to some open project to realize that all those programmers out there are actually all people like me.

When I first committed something to an OSS project, I got an amazing response full of gratitude and warmth. For me, this took a lot of anxiety out of the whole experience! Since then, I have contributed several small things to several projects. That is the way it should be!

Funny enough, my first commit to an OSS project felt very similar to my first post to a message board, my first post to a foreign message board, my first post to Hacker News, hell, in some ways even to all those first awkward sentences you exchange with any human being!

Which just proves that the Internet as a whole is actually just a bunch of people. And most of the active contributors are really nice, too!

<comment><USER3> >my first post to Hacker News

You mean you were downvoted because you said "I agree!" and had to start with a karma of -19?

Doesn't sound fun!

<comment><USER2> Not at all. But in contrast to most forums and message boards, people seem to be pretty intelligent around here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the most rewarding ways I've found to contribute to open source is to connect communities and developers. Like if someone posts a fork on github, put the original developer in contact with them and make sure there's an effort to collaborate rather than differentiate.

It seems trivial and obvious, but for the dozens of times that I've been able to make a connection it really seems to pay off. As other commenters have noted, it isn't until you're developing that you realize that other developers are just like you - the same goes with assumptions of the original project creators. "He works at Facebook, he'd never respond to me" or "She is from Germany, surely there's a language barrier", etc. are all excuses that cause forking.

As we all know, it is easier to download the source, fix your bug, and not submit a bugfix - as open source projects continue to increase exponentially, I think we'll see more of the successful projects being the ones that have people actively creating & seeking collaboration rather than assuming it will occur in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for your article. I've been trying to jump into contributing to OSS projects for some times but I've been unable to figure out where to start. "Scratch your own itch" is probably the best way to start for someone like me.

<comment><USER4> Another great way is to find a project you use, look at the bug reports, and start fixing them. Go after the small ones, or the fun ones, whatever seems appealing. Odds are that if the bug is still open but not critical, you'll be the first one to submit the fix and start to become loved by the community!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I run an open source programming group that meets once a month in my area and also self-assembles a few times a year at programming conferences I attend. The idea is that we meet for a few hours on Friday night and the meeting is over when there is at least one patch to a project. It's fun and I've made some friends, but there is nothing as rewarding as taking a first-timer and leading them through the process of build/fix/send-patch. It a trivial process as long as someone is in the room to help you through it.

There are a lot of groups like this around the world. Search for "bug mash", "hackerspace", or "hackergarten" in your area. I highly recommend attending something like this. (And if you're in the Basel or Baden-Württemberg area then come out to my group. I'm grilling American hamburgers for everyone tomorrow night).

</comment><comment><USER7> I believe that most open-source developers started by scratching one of their itches. Probably quite a few, too, by just open-sourcing academic work.

Now, I wonder: how many coders did start by being ordered by their boss to open-source their code and/or to contribute to an existing open-source project?

<comment><USER8> I don't know if such bosses exist. Many of my programmer friends would like to make their stuff opensource but their bosses (companies) forbid it. Though it's mostly really useful but not "trade secret" stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> nice article, I was ever searching for something like that!

<comment><USER10> Generally, the etiquette on HN is to use the upvote button to register that you like something, rather than to post a comment.

<comment><USER11> I don't see any problem with someone expressing verbally that they like something instead of just up voting. Though, I do see a problem when someone tells people how to express themselves.

<comment><USER12> I think you're mostly being downvoted for your second sentence:

\- It's ironically hypocritical in that you're implying mtogo shouldn't tell someone how to comment while simultaneously doing it yourself.

\- It's misplaced because mtogo's comment was informative and neutral while yours was opinion-based and snarky.

Aside from those issues, you're a new member weighing in on proper HN etiquette. Does that seem sensible?

<comment><USER11> I have no problem getting downvoted. To clarify though, I expressed my opinion disagreeing with mtogo's comment. I did not tell him/imply what/how he should comment. In any case, I did't know that opinion-based comments are discouraged in an opinion-based comment thread. I guess I am missing something here...

<comment><USER12> Your comment criticized mtogo for criticizing someone's comment. That is irony.

Presumably, mtogo voted JeremyS down because his comment lacked substance. Because JeremyS is a new member, he then informed him of why he voted him down and what is generally proper HN etiquette.

You then weighed in for no apparent reason. If you were speaking from expertise, experience, or authority, (e.g., if it had been pg instead of you) your opinion would carry more weight and therefore be worth stating. Instead, it just added more noise to a comment subthread lacking substance.

The point of both my comments and mtogo's are to emphasize one of the things that HN users value most: a high signal-to-noise ratio in comment threads. Pull up threads from a few years ago and you will notice a major difference in the tone and the information density. We are both trying to help new users understand how to make Hacker News a better place for everyone.

<comment><USER10> Just to clarify; I actually didn't vote JeremyS down, but rather up, because he was receiving downvotes and didn't know the etiquette. I thought i'd let him know the etiquette so he doesn't get downvoted in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My own first experience in trying to contribute where far from that pleasant and successful.

This was some years ago; I was working on one of those (back then) much beloved projects of integrating Linux file servers into an existing Active Directory domain.

This works pretty neat and well with samba, kerberos and samba's "winbind" daemon. Now, that winbind daemon can store its users/user-mappings on an LDAP server thus several Linux file servers would share a common user database. Typically this was done by setting up or using a separate OpenLDAP but with a few tricks, one could actually use the Active Directory itself to store all that along-side the user and not have the hassle of having to set up yet another directory server or tree.

I tried contacting the samba team but never really got a reply other than "they will look at it" and after months of not hearing from them, I asked again and that was it; haven't heard from them since.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hmm, I went the other route. Instead of contributing to other projects I opensourced mine. Maybe someone might find them useful. :)</comment>


On the Rails Maturity Model - <AUTHOR> http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/2009/05/on-the-rails-maturity-model/

<comment><USER2> Wait, does it even still exist? This post is from spring 2009, back around when Obie Fernandez first came up with this nonsense, and I haven't even thought or heard about it in at least half a year. I do remember Obie apologizing for it after the backlash.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ironically, the rails maturity model is down right now (returning an error).</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone have a good solution for managing multiple pptx for events? - <AUTHOR> Anyone have any tips for software that can manage multiple powerpoint and/or PDF files and switch seamlessly between them? I always ask for PPTX format but then some people complain that fonts aren't preserved. I need to manage multiple large PPTX files for an event. <comment><USER2> Are you talking about switching between Powerpoint and PDF files while you're on stage?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I would be the one managing an event, and I need to cue up the files in advance. I don't really mind about the format, but how to manage and switch between multiple large pptx smoothly. Cheers in advance for any tips!</comment></comment>


Why the iPhone 5 is a good thing - <AUTHOR> http://jackcallister.me/2012/09/why-the-iphone-5-is-a-good-thing/

<comment><USER2> > Unfortunately there's a downside to doing this – small incremental changes > that uneducated consumers won't appreciate.

It's the "educated" tech press and bloggers who have a problem with incremental improvement. The public is buying it.

<comment><USER3> In fairness, I think it's hard to tell to what degree the public is buying it because they're impressed with the iPhone 5 in particular, and to what degree they're buying it because they like the iOS ecosystem in general, and Apple has trained their customers to hold off purchase of the old model for a few months before the new model comes out, creating months of pent-up demand for anything they could release as long as it's not actually defective.

I don't mean that as some kind of indictment -- if you create customers so happy with their products that they'll buy the new one whenever they're due for a replacement, surely that speaks well of the job you've done! But the tradition Apple public relations machine was driven by the expectation that there would be something new and exciting, so everyone felt the need to pay close attention.

The greater risk, I think, is of the media deciding that new Apple releases are no longer special news events worthy of major coverage in general interest publications and dedicated stories on mainstream television news. And instead a new iPhone becomes an event on the order of a new Honda Civic -- lots of people buy them, lots of people buy a new one to replace the last one they had. But honestly, how many people get genuinely excited because there's a new Civic?

<comment><USER2> I don't disagree. I agree it's hard to know what "the public" thinks. I do think the public is uneducated about the details of the iPhone 5, but I don't think that makes them not buy it.

I actually think most of the public is so uneducated they don't really know the difference between and incremental or large improvements in most cases, so the incremental thing becomes irrelevant because they are uneducated. They only know when a handful of major using facing features come out (e.g. siri, iphoto app release, retina display, new shape, maybe the earpods).

And they know that Apple says "new and better" and they put some trust in that since they don't know how to evaluate it themselves (a lot of the public would have difficulty telling the difference between an iPhone 5 and a samsung phone or a 4s).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that the "uneducated" with regards to Apple products is a slowly dwindling minority. The day of the iPhone 5 launch, I overheard multiple conversations on the street from people that I quickly judged as not the stereotypical Apple fan. But I think this goes to show that Apple products (and apparently their announcements) are captivating to a lot of people now.

Regardless, it's clear that Apple's announcement was only disappointing to bloggers; actual consumers seem to be very interested in the latest revision of the iPhone.</comment>


OpenSUSE Linux 12.2 for ARM released - <AUTHOR> http://news.opensuse.org/2012/11/06/opensuse-12-2-for-arm-final/

<comment><USER2> I imagine many Linux users are quite bemused at the speculation over rumours of OS X switching from Intel to ARM. When put into context, it's not that big a deal is it?

<comment><USER3> Getting Mac OS X to run on ARM is no big deal. I'm sure there are internal test systems doing this already.

Getting the entire ecosystem moved over is a very big deal. I don't see how an emulation approach can work this time, as the ARM chips would not be significantly faster than the chips they are replacing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> yay for opensuse. when they delayed 12.2 a few months back i switched to ubuntu on both my laptop and desktop/firewall/mail router/fileserver. but while i really like ubuntu on the laptop (seriously - unity is great), i missed the way that opensuse's yast simplifies / unifies service management on the main box (am i the only person in the world that expects to be able to configure lvm over raid on install - ubuntu server couldn't handle what seemed to be quite a reasonable config...). so when 12.2 came out i switched back to opensuse. it's great, and i wish it were more popular with american audiences - for me it's the perfect mix of ease of use and power.

sorry, a bit off-topic really. i just feel frustrated that it's seen as a second class citizen compared to ubuntu and redhat, when in my experience (having worked with both those and others) it's by far the best for my kind of server/do-it-all use-case.</comment>


Roeschke Pornblocker Software (Gives the internet back to innocence) - <AUTHOR> http://www.coloribus.com/paedia/prints/2008/06/24/202379/

<comment><USER2> I don't like the specific ad but this site coloribus.com is a goldmine of interesting visual print ads, most of them from European/overseas campaigns.

Edit: Coloribus has a paywall. It was too good to be free.

Thin-slicing one woman's life: [http://www.coloribus.com/paedia/prints/2008/06/24/202386/sho...](http://www.coloribus.com/paedia/prints/2008/06/24/202386/show/)</comment>


Interview with Nenad Rakocevic about Red, a Rebol-inspired programming language - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@unbalancedparen/interview-with-nenad-rakocevic-about-red-a-rebol-inspired-programming-language-681133e3fd1c <comment><USER2> They're doing a good job. Was recently looking at Racket for metaprogramming to make a language that... does a lot of what Red does. Might just use Red lol. Still the tough decision between it and Racket. I'd _think_ Racket having more people and time behind it (along with IDE) might still make it the best tool.

Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER3> A little commenting on the reddit version in case anyone is interested. I usually prefer the hacker news crowd though. Does anyone already have an area in mind where they plan to use this?

__[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3irjxx/intervi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3irjxx/interview_with_nenad_rakocevic_about_red_a_rebol/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd really like to see a Red <-> Unity or Red <-> JS bridge. Unfortunately there's been no word on a JS bridge since it was suggested for Google's Summer of Code 2014. Android is an interesting but fast-moving target, I think Unity or JS would allow Red much more widespread adoption across platforms.

In the meantime I've been tempted to write a microservice in Red using the 0MQ binding [1]. Other bridges and bindings are listed on the contributions page [2].

[1]: [http://rebol.esperconsultancy.nl/extensions/0MQ/](http://rebol.esperconsultancy.nl/extensions/0MQ/)

[2]: [http://www.red-lang.org/p/contributions.html](http://www.red- lang.org/p/contributions.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Great interview & overview of Red, Nenad! (if you're reading this)

I had a rare opportunity to speak with Nenad a while back in Beijing. Great dude all around, I wish him all the best with the development of Red - hope to see its success!

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't wait to see Red get to 1.0

</comment><comment><USER7> Clean, beautiful</comment>