Spotify CEO Daniel Ek sparked an online backlash after a social media post in which he said the cost of creating “content” is “close to zero”.
The boss of the streaming giant said in a post on X: "Today, with the cost of creating content being close to zero, people can share an incredible amount of content. This has sparked my curiosity about the concept of long shelf life versus short shelf life.
"While much of what we see and hear quickly becomes obsolete, there are timeless ideas or even pieces of music that can remain relevant for decades or even centuries.
“Also, what are we creating now that will still be valued and discussed hundreds or thousands of years from today?”
Music fans and musicians were quick to call Ek out, with one user, composer Tim Prebble, saying: “Music will still be valued in a hundred years. Spotify won’t. It will only be remembered as a bad example of a parasitic tool for extracting value from other peoples music. (or “content” as some grifters like to call it).”
Musicians weighed in too, with Primal Scream bassist Simone Marie Butler saying: “Fuck off you out of touch billionaire.”
I like what Bandcamp does, but I don’t necessarily want to have to download every song/album I buy off there and store it on my phone, or open the app and manually select a song or album one at a time to listen to.
I wish there was a way to build playlists, or even a full featured streaming service similar to what Spotify offers that would pay artists a respectable cut for streaming but not necessarily purchasing albums.
It would be nice to have that option but I suppose there’s probably arguments against it, I’m not really that familiar with all the pros and cons from the artists’ perspective. Even just a song radio type option like Spotify has would be great, because I do find a fair bit of new music that way.
Also, in case people aren’t aware, Spotify was sold to Epic games a few years ago, and they sold it on to a music licensing company who then laid off 16% of Bandcamp’s employees. So I’m not sure how much longer it’s going to be a good place for indie musicians.I guess we’ll see though.