Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring this video! Head to https://bombas.yt.link/bUYKbL5 and use code ZACKARY at checkout for 20% off your first purchase.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ZackarySmigel/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zas11s
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zas11s/
Everything else: https://linktr.ee/zackarysmigel
Here are the chapters for this video. Feel free to jump around accordingly:
0:00 Introduction
0:56 The Origin Story: How Spotify Was Created
2:02 Spotify App Review: Problems, Glitches & Price Hikes
3:46 Rising Subscription Costs & Employee Layoffs Explained
4:56 Taylor Swift, Lily Allen, and Spotify’s Artist Pay Controversy
5:42 Sponsor Segment – Bombas
6:57 How Spotify Pays Artists (And Why It’s Confusing)
7:58 The Problem With Spotify’s Pro-Rata Payment Model
9:20 Royalty Splits, Secret Contracts & Playlist Deals
10:53 How Spotify Changed the Sound of Modern Music
12:26 What Is “Spotify-Friendly” Music?
13:22 Virality Over Art: How Labels Game the System
14:51 Ghost Artists: Spotify’s Shady Playlist Strategy
17:26 AI Music Is Flooding Spotify — Here’s What’s Happening
17:51 Real Examples of Ghost and AI Artists
19:00 The Velvet Sundown Controversy Explained
19:51 Should AI Music Be Labeled for Listeners?
21:05 Where Is All the Money Going?
22:00 Spotify’s Market Cap & Daniel Ek’s $724M Payday
23:30 Is Spotify’s Business Model Sustainable?
24:15 Spotify Is Selling Your Mood Data to Advertisers
25:48 Final Thoughts – Why Spotify Is Quietly Ruining Music
Stock valuation data sourced from Qualtrim. Used under fair use for commentary and educational purposes. This video is not affiliated with or endorsed by Qualtrim. Visit https://www.qualtrim.com or https://www.youtube.com/@JosephCarlsonShow/
Check out Mood Machine by Liz Pelly to learn more: https://lizpelly.info/book
This video is not affiliated with or endorsed by Liz Pelly, but her book was a massive resource during my research. I highly recommend checking it out.
Assistant Editor and Graphic Designer: @JoeMrozek
Note:
I deliberately leave the channel icons and video titles on each video for reference in case anyone wants to see the full videos featured in these documentaries. If anything is unclear, or for additional references, please reach out, and I will happily provide a link to any of the following content discussed, featured, or used as a b-roll in the video.
Copyright Note:
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Music:
All songs featured in the video are from:
– Epidemic Sound: https://share.epidemicsound.com/8mvwnm (referral link)
– YouTube’s Audio Library
– Kevin MacLeod’s royalty free music library: http://incompetech.com/
– Ian Taylor’s RuneScape Music library owned by Jagex LTD. Please check out their music on Spotify if you are into that style. I cannot emphasize enough how good the music is.
=-=-=-=
Thanks so much for watching! You all are the best.
#youtube #videoessay #zackarysmigel
=-=-=-=
Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more engaging video commentary!
=-=-=-=
Watch Spotify Tv, Music, Podcasts, and Audiobooks videos on SloppBoxx.Com.
Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring this video! Head to https://bombas.yt.link/bUYKbL5 and use code ZACKARY at checkout for 20% off your first purchase.
Also, thank you, the viewer, for watching me rant about Spotify. It’s been a wild month, I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know your top three favorite musicians or bands down below!
Duncan Skuva, Emtee, Boxis
I was really grateful when i got my bombas
one luv
The old thumbnail was better.
I don’t use Spotify, but I like your vids, so…Thumbs Up! 😉
Great video you’re doing important work here.
Man I’m watching this days after Oliver Tree’s death, and did not expect to see his name hear 😢
As of today Taylor is back on Spotify when did she make the switch back
How’s Apple Music different?
I meaaaaaaaaaaaan… yes, and no? Of course that what you say about AI is right, but what you say about the artists shortening the music, that is all their decisions, my man. Dream Theater is a band that has been around since 1989. Their average length for songs is like 6 minutes. They do have intros that last 28 seconds, or even interludes that last 1 minute. They usually tell a story with every album, so they use interludes as change of pace and to hook you into an even longer song. Their longest song is 24 minutes. I repeat: twenty four minutes. This is NOT a one time ocurrence, by the way. Almost every album has a song that lasts between 14 minutes to 24. 24 is just the longest overall. So believe they are being really screwed about the spotify streams. Their latest album came out last year and except for one interlude that lasts 1min 28sec, their shortest song on that album is almost 6 minutes, their longest is 19. So putting revenue before music and quality of music, that’s on the artists. Yes, Spotify can screw you, but putting up algorithms before what you truly believe your music does or how you do music, I believe that’s on you. It’s not like Taylor Swift is a starving artist.
With this I’m not defending spotify. I mean that you can absolutely fight the good fight against spotify and their practices, while still making good music that is faithful to what you’ve been doing throughout your career. The actually real peope getting screwed are new artists, people with smaller listeniner counts.
The moment that spotify started pushing ai music on me, I switched over to YTMusic. It’s way better.
22:09 Spotify stock is now $459.50 (-33.7%) compared to when you did this video.