Hilarious, they’re getting ad revenue and engagement, that’s all they should worry about and keeping Joe Rogan pumped full of his not-drug drugs so he doesn’t go totally fucking nuts.
I don’t understand how people listening to podcasts could possibly cost a podcast platform money. It feels an awful lot like if people consume your product actively and you lose money then maybe you just shouldn’t be a business.
“Creators of a broken system upset that people have found a way to actually profit from said system”.
Spotify has one of the highest quality services and a monthly price that’s barely gone up in a decade. This shit just leads to them having to raise the subscription rate again if they can’t fix the issue with people clearly undermining the payment model. What the hell is it that you people want?
Stupid decisions like paying $200 million for Joe Rogan’s shitty podcast certainly don’t help
Wether you like it or not it’s the most popular podcast in the world (or atleast was at the time) No amount of hate is going to change that.
$200 million is a lot of money for a podcast when your core Business is music streaming.
I believe spotify is the most popular podcast streaming app so even if their core business used to be music it’s not that anymore. Atleast not exclusively. Instagram used to be about photography too. Platforms evolve.
You are correct that Spotify is the most popular streaming app for podcasts, at least in the US, as of March 2023
Providing some link backup for you since folks decided to downvote you for saying something they didn’t like.
Do we know whether they’re making money or a loss on that deal? I remember Joe Rogan’s podcast being really popular
I’ve been boycotting that podcast ever since. Such a stupid decision. And if I’m going to use a streaming service, Apple Music suits my needs just fine.
I like the implication here that your phone is so used to you saying Rohan it autocorrected.
Where was Rogan when the Westfold fell?
On DMT, obviously.
Fixed, LOL
Spotify has some terrible externalities though.
the highest quality services
What’s you’re definition of quality? Spotify is dramatically less useful than it used to be. So many options taken away shuffling is useless, garbage gets slipped in as a “suggestion”, etc.
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Doesn’t Spotify cap out at like 192kbps? I got sucked into Apple Music once I heard it had lossless music.
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are you old?
with time it gets naturally impossible to hear those differences
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Bit depth affects noise floor, not frequency range.
You are correct that the noise floor of 16 bit is well within the limits of human hearing, making 24 bit redundant outside of production.
Spotify maxes out at 256k, so you’re just wrong there.
I can absolutely hear the difference between 192 and lossless with any of my too-many-pairs-of nice headphones! Not at all with my AirBudz though.
I can absolutely not tell in my car or my partner’s, despite us both having high-end sound systems (theirs is 2kUSD+ and I can’t even tell in there!)
I love YouTube music. I get all the same songs as the other big services, plus free YouTube premium. Between my jam and habit and my quixotic quest to teach myself woodworking, I watch a LOT of YouTube videos.
I switched back to Spotify after google music disappeared.
too much crossover between random youtube videos and actual high quality music
But when you listen to jam bands random YouTube videos ARE the high quality music!
i want mp3’s i can put in my car
What the hell is it that you people want?
Keys to Paradise and a new Bentley. Preferably the ones they use at LeMans…
People want the CEO to keep his mouth shut instead of publicly demonstrating his disregard of the art form,
as well as pay artists that create actual music more, and people abusing the system (see the OP) less.Spotify has one of the highest quality services
spotify is a great service for spotify
spotify is a great service for the consumer
spotify is a godawful exploitive pile of manure for artists
It kinda sucks for the consumer too. It’s certainly not the best for the price for the consumer at the very least
Your comment seems to be about the user/listener experience. The comment you responded to had NOTHING to do with the user/listener experience.
How is this undermining the payment model, do tell?
is it in a cloud?
well, then you dont own anything.
is said cloud owned by americans?
well, you are the product.
you still pay?
you are the idiot.
[sPoTifY noT bAd retards:
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/SPOTIFY-TECHNOLOGY-S-A-42589613/ ]
Lol
Spotify is a Swedish company.
oh then we must be really really lucky
Not my fault you suggested it was an American company.
they are not swedish
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/SPOTIFY-TECHNOLOGY-S-A-42589613/
thats not spotify?
spotify is shit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify
Spotify (/ˈspɒtɪfaɪ/; Swedish: [ˈspɔ̂tːɪfaj]) is a Swedish[6] audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.[7]… …Spotify is listed (through a Luxembourg City-domiciled holding company, Spotify Technology S.A.[1]) on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.
i do not think there is an argument in the world to help a fanboy.
remember when shitty sweden snitched on julian? i wouldnt host a wordpress site in sweden, let alone consider daniel and martin to be trusted. the stock holders arent the nice guys, it is not federated, they want to scam money out of whitenoise streams, geeez we could go on for hours. some ppl use chrome, spotify, yt premium or what ever horrible company they like to follow.
A more healthy response to having been proven wrong is to thank the person correcting you for helping you be less wrong, and move on with your life. I suggest that for the next interaction you have with a stranger.
Go on… where is their headquarters?
what is a fig leaf?
Guess someone’s Google Alert rang
I know it’s a joke (or a point made in a humorous way) but it raised a serious question in my mind-
Are lemmy instances indexed by Google? Does it find/know about them through crawling or does it only do the bigger instances? Basically, could someone be led to a lemmy post from a google alert?
News flash: providing a product costs money!
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People could buy an analog radio and “tune” into the cosmic noise.
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I didn’t realize that you could stream it. There are tons of apps and downloads that you can use for it. I sleep to white noise cast to my TV from an MP4 that I have on my computer. It does seem like a huge waste of bandwidth.
You know I’d get the whole bandwidth argument IF PEOPLE WERENT PAYING FOR IT VIA THEIR SUB/ADS. Also every argument everyone has presented can be used for actual music too. You can buy the cd/mp3s and play them locally so PlAyInG iT oN sPoTiFy sEeMs lIke A wAsTE oF BaNdWiDtH
You seem to not have the slightest understanding of what I was referring to. I’ll try to break it down into something easier to understand.
Imagine that Spotify is a stream (a real stream of water, not an internet stream). To get to the ocean it has to pass through a concrete tunnel. There are millions of little fish that pass through that tunnel all the time. Suddenly several crocodiles decide that they want to pass through at the same time. The tunnel wasn’t designed for crocodiles. Sure, they can get through, but they fill the tunnel and the little fish get bunched up, slow down, and take longer to get to the other side. If you just gave the crocodiles a road to walk down that was over the tunnel, then they could get to the ocean without slowing down the little fish.
For this analogy, the little fish are songs, the crocodiles are white noise, the tunnel is the internet stream, the road is an FTP server, and the slowing down of the stream is buffering and increased cost.
You say you’re paying for bandwidth. You’re paying for access. Spotify is paying for the bandwidth, and it increases in cost the more it has to be increased in size to accommodate the service. If the company can reduce the demand on the bandwidth, then they can continue to offer the service without having to increase what you pay, while also using that savings to better their services.
The biggest issue with streaming services right now is that they are realizing that what they are charging is not covering the expensive cost of the bandwidth they are using. That’s why most of them are increasing what they charge. If Spotify can find a away to eleviate that issue, then that’s a good business practice.
No I quite understand how bandwidth works, you are paying for it because you’re paying Spotify lol, if Spotify get no monies from ads/subs they have no internet, they have no audio library, they have no technicians, they have no developers, your sub PAYS FOR ALL OF THAT. What even is this word salad of corporate boot licking nonsense? Especially in an age where fiber optics bandwidth is more than enough to push those itty bitty 1s and 0s through their lines to their customers.
You’re literally trying to argue the same as when Comcast and Time Warner intentionally slowed Netflix and other video games because “bandwidth”. Here’s again the issue, you pay for your internet, you pay for Spotify, which pays for access AND their internet. If Spotify can’t survive then they should raise their prices not try to hide behind “bandwidth” when we ve been streaming god damn audio since the 90s on copper dial up.
You’ve obviously never tried to stream multiple things from your own server. It’s not as simple as you make it sound. Why do you think nobody can compete with YouTube? It’s because the cost is so expensive to stream. You can post the same videos to an FTP server with no huge bandwidth issue, but streaming takes a lot more.
Only people with a T1 line could stream in the 90s. Either you’re too young or you’ve forgotten that it wasn’t possible for 99% of people to stream until cable internet started being introduced in the early 2000s.
Edit: I read the article and it’s not the subject I thought it was. I thought it was about artist/band/podcast making silent tracks to put on repeat while you sleep to boost revenue for the artist
Original comment: I don’t think they all want to listen to white noise, it’s a way to support whichever creator you want to support with your spotify subscription.
My wife and I play white noise to my son via Spotify to help him sleep.
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I also find it strange that folks stream their white noise. I use a self contained app for that. No streaming necessary so even if I’m out of service I can still use it to sleep.
If you have an iPhone you don’t even need an app - it’s right in Settings
We stream white noise through Spotify because it means it’ll be there on any device that’s Spotify works on. Phones, tablets, smart speakers, TVs, whatever.
I used to use a self-contained app before I had a Spotify subscription.
Now I have one less app on my phone as it’s no longer needed. If I really thought I’d need it out of service, I’d just download the playlist temporarily.
i can’t fault that at all.
We have a white noise machine for my son in his room, but having it handy via Spotify is nice for using it in the car.
I do!
Actually not white noise. I find it harsher than brown noise which is more soothing to my ears.
I use Amazon Prime though. I used to just run an app which generated the noise on my phone. Except that my phone is right next to me on my nightstand. It was annoying because one ear would hear it much louder than the other. So I started using the built in background noises that Amazon offers on my Alexa device which was across the room from the bed.
Now I agree with you that it seems like it’s a waste of bandwidth. But when I run it at night I’m not really using the internet for anything else. More importantly, if it was a problem for Amazon serving those noises, then let me install an app or something that would simply generate the noises. The mathematical formula to generate the noises with some sine waves is probably like a 1MB of data (if that) and I’d only need it once. But since I don’t think you can just install apps on Alexa devices then too bad for them. I’ll continue doing what I’m doing.
Not to mention, Spotify is putting ads in white noise content? Kinda…destroys the entire concept, no?
There is so much about this story that makes me hate modern society. How is more of this content still being created? Why are there ads? Spotify can destroy peoples livelihood on a whim?
Although, I did find the part where someone with podcast “didn’t want to call attention to their show” pretty funny.
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Yeah, who says America doesn’t build stuff anymore?! Have you seen our premium content?!
Lol like I said, modern society is a fuckin joke. At this point I’m rooting for climate change
I just ask my HomePod to do it.
I guess that it might be streaming it?
Which sorta highlights a large portion of the people doing it you’re likely missing: people who don’t even think about it.
I assume the Siri and Google assistant white noise just download the 20 min file when you ask and just repeat that. Whereas an 8h podcast of a 20 minute repeated sound will use 8h of bandwidth
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You mean that magical unlimited thing that just flows freely from the walls?
People don’t think about the energy wasted to do that
It costs fractions of pennies to transfer data across the internet, especially something as small as a white noise audio file.
Audio size is based on the quality of the recording, not what the recording is.
If the white noise is for some reason recorded in high quality, it’s going to use as much data as music.
That’s only true for constant rate compression, not for variable bitrate compression
Compression algorithms generally rely on sensing patterns in the data to allow you to store just one example of that data and where it repeats, instead of storing it all fully. This is extremely visible in H264 and H265 for video, where the first is easily 1% the size of the raw video data, and the second is easily 1/10th the size of that, since it can detect more patterns to compress.
White noise means your mp3 is basically the size of the uncompressed data, instead of being 5-25% that size (stat from Wikipedia on compression ratio of mp3). This costs Spotify more for storage and streaming bandwidth.
It really doesn’t, not at all.
The paychoacoustic models just do their best for the given Bitstream and it’s not true white noise, just the most audible parts, you end up with the lowest 30 Harmonics or so that it can find (random numbers have a lot of harmonics.
Brain can’t tell, brain is dumb.
White noise means your mp3 is basically the size of the uncompressed data
You’re forgetting that mp3 is a very lossy compression algorithm that’ll happily discard much of the frequency spectrum, which in the case of white noise actually would be a pretty significant amount of data.
Famously compressible white noise.
If only there was a way to locally generate white noise in real time, but alas…
Do you know a good way to do it w/o electricity?
Light a campfire in your bedroom
Running water from a faucet with an aerator
I love the malicious compliance of this
I guess my point was that consuming bandwidth to stream white noise from a phone that’s on for other reasons is a rather efficient use of resources. My assumption was that using running water wouldn’t be the retort because A) it’s more valuable than electricity & B) there’s a pump involved somewhere in the process. I assumed wrong, but we played the game & no harm was done.
Hot water, obviously.
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Maybe a pegboard with tens of thousands of tuning forks on it?
I always download my white noise or sleep music and place them into Playlist.
I usually only do it when I’m travelling and have to stay at a motel or something. At home I just have a box fan for white noise and air flow.
I’m curious about this too. Maybe they are listening with headphones? I have no idea if they make them like this but it seems like an opportunity for white noise machine makers to just add Bluetooth and they would sell more. Maybe?
But why would I buy a machine for that when I already have a machine that can make any noise?
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I’ve never had any of these problems personally. Not that I have anything against white noise machines but that’s why people see them as superfluous. They kind of are.
But maybe if you have spotty internet that makes sense.
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Sometimes I play rain/storm sounds I’ve downloaded from YouTube. Other times I use the iPhone white noise generator. I’ve set up 2 Siri shortcuts (one for sound on and one for sound off), but tapping the back sounds like a good way to do it, too.
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Wow you are right that is hidden. I have an iPhone and had no idea that was there. I’ll have to try it out.
There are apps that can make white noise while using 0 network really. If I was Spotify I’d write a library into the app that detected white noise and stopped streaming, and just turned on the local generator in their app.
I’d have a Javascript one-liner producing white noise, except web audio is a Gordian knot of inscrutable identical-sounding types and contexts and maps and whateverthefuck. Documentation reads like they forgot to implement it and hoped nobody would notice.
How do you generate noise? Well you need a sink. How do I get a sink? Well you need an event. How do you get an event? Well you need a processor. How do you get a processor? Well you need a context. How do you get a context? Well you need a node. How do you get a node? Well you need a sink. I’m going to stab you now. Understandable.
Anyway it’s something like
data:text/html,{script} ac = new AudioContext(); wn = ac.createScriptProcessor( 4096, 1, 1 ); wn.onaudioprocess = (e) => e.outputBuffer.getChannelData(0).forEach( (v,i,a) => a[i] = Math.random() ); wn.connect( ac.destination ); {/script}except with whatever dark wizardry makes output reach a speaker.Also I’m not sure .forEach works on whichever array-like type was chosen for audio channels. This stupid language has so many incompatible and incomplete array implementations.
edit: And angle brackets on script and /script, because this stupid website fucked up its Markdown. Preventing random HTML strings in comments: excellent, necessary, obvious; it is not 1999 anymore. Doing so by deleting the entire goddamn thing as if you parsed it before removing it: DEEPLY TROUBLING.
White noise is literally random numbers. Your machine can do it using approximately zero percent of its available resources.
In a very real sense, any single transistor can do it, and computer engineering is an effort to keep them from doing it.
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And the enshittification continues on unchallenged.
it’s better than most of the stuff on Spotify
Spotify bleeds money just like all the other streaming services and is kept alive by dumb investors that think, it will be someday profitable. Maybe they should stop trying to push so hard for podcasts and focus on their core business.
Their core business is built on record labels that always want more and more money until Spotify collapses.
It’s kind of funny how the modern narrative around music streaming never mentions record labels, who in all honesty are the ones who always have been screwing over artists.
Tells you who is doing most of the “talking”
If you are an artist on Spotify, you will likely make more money shorting their stock than you will from stream revenue.
Just a fun little fact.
My biggest takeaway from this article is that I should get into the white noise game on Spotify. Even if I only make 1/20th of the quoted revenue for a few months it will be worth it
It’s time for Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music to shine.
I think from an advertising revenue pov, it makes sense for Spotify to treat this as a problem. Spotify has an incentive to attract advertisers to spend money on ad space in their ad supported audio content. Part of the value is having ads placed in spaces with a high probability o"viewability" which is basically saying that when the ad was delivered, did it deliver in an environment where someone saw it or heard it. Regular podcasts probably have a high viewability because listeners are more actively engaged. White noise “pod casts” probably have a low viewability because the whole point is for it to put users to sleep and be background noise. So I think there’s probably a challenge for Spotify to increase the value to advertisers by demonstrating white noise machines aren’t eating up their ad dollars. And there’s a challenge with the content producers of non white noise to be compensated fairly for having higher viewership generating content than white noise.
They need to incorporate ambient sounds as an app feature (no ads) and then ban content that simply recreates that default feature.
How does this cost any money besides cost of bandwidth?
They pay the author, and white noise is streaming all night.
How is white noise even something that someone can have a license on?
Shouldn’t it be identical no matter where you listen to it and therefore impossible to get money from?
It’s not actually all white noise. It’s stuff like waves crashing, raindrops, etc.
If it’s well made truly random noise, then it would never be identical. That’s why it’s costing Spotify so much in the first place. Compressors can’t reduce storage and bandwidth use because it’s always different. Even if the human ear can’t discern the difference.
This galaxy brain over here making me think about compressing after encryption vs compressing encrypted data.
I would wonder if it’s just procedurally generated random noise, can it be said the file has human artistic intent and can it be protected under copyright?
I feel like someone listening to white noise wouldn’t simply replace it with Ed Sheeran if the white noise was not available.
That’s not the issue though. There’s a finite amount of money that Spotify pays out based on the amount of subscription fees it is bringing in. That $38 million would be divided up amongst all the other artists if it wasn’t being paid to white noise podcasts.
I’ve listened to some music that is only a few steps away from white noise- atmospheric black metal, dark ambient, etc. Stuff that many people would scoff at and not even call it music. But it was intentionally created, and put out there for people to listen to. Regardless of the quality or enjoyability of the music, it’s unreasonable to draw a line as to what is or is not “sound meant for other people to listen to”.
Just because someone has found a way to make “music” with less effort and doesn’t make it “not music”, regardless of what it sounds like. Hell, one of the most famous pieces of experimental/avant garde music “4’33” is literally silence from the performers and the “music” is the sounds of the environment you are experiencing it in.
If I want to listen to any of these things on Spotify, well, they better pay whoever the rights-holder is that licensed it to Spotify to stream at the agreed upon rate. Spotify, other artists, and (most importantly) their labels can whine all they want. These are the contracts they’ve agreed to and as a subscriber I’ll exercise my contractually-agreed-upon ability to listen to whatever is on the platform for as long as I want. Maybe I’m awake, maybe I’m not, maybe I’m subliminally absorbing the music while sleeping. That’s no one’s business but my own.
That $38 million would be divided up amongst all the other artists if it wasn’t being paid to white noise podcasts.
It would be divided amongst the record labels and distributed to artists as those labels see fit.
Hopefully in accordance with their contracts with artists
I mean, yes…unfortunately those contracts have always been very exploitative for all but the top music acts.
famously top artist taylor swift had a very great situation with her contract, she just decided to re-record her entire discography for funsies. like when you re-read a book.
Yes, those famously equitable contracts with artists, we’ve all heard legends of their great generosity.
So it’s not the user getting screwed, not the artists getting screwed, but record labels ?!
Record labels are getting screwed over by indie artists in a new niche that has exploded
This is 100% a massive W
So someone creates an ambient noise track, people enjoy the ambient track, and the person who created the ambient track gets paid. I don’t see the problem.
White noise it’s not copyrightable. So, anyone can make a copy, including Spotify themselves. They could “pirate” all the white noise podcasts and redirect them to something they own. Problem solved.
Well then, from a purely business pov, it seems that what spoitfy should do is wipe these white noise casts, post some of their own (possibly from a subsidiary) and watch that extra 38mill roll in
Not podcasts, but Spotify does curate white noise playlists just like they do other music playlists.
I listen to either Night Rain, Dreamy Vibes, or Floating Through Space some nights.
What problem? There was never a problem.
If you are a Spotify exec, there is a problem.
If you are an indie musician who sees your payout being reduced because Spotify says they need to pay white noise podcasts, there is a problem.
If you believe that this is a zero-sum game and Spotify prints money like magic, there is no problem.
I don’t think you know what a zero sim game is…
All you’re saying is that different tracks/shows are competing for attention, and white noise is doing well in that competition. You could make the same argument about any genre.
Country music is taking a portion of the income that white noise could get paid. Therefore remove all country music from sp0tify.
No one should care about a spotify exec. This includes their parents and wife. Everyone who creates audio projects for spotify should be paid. This includes musicians and creators of ambient noise tracks. People like those tracks, they are popular, they should be paid. It’s not a difficult concept. Make a product. Distribute the product. Get paid for the product. You perception of the products relative value compared to other disimilar products in the same file format, is about the least relevant thing in the world. Even if you don’t think the product represents enough “effort” to be considered equal.
All of this is crazy.
I didn’t say anything about “value”, I said about copyright.
If it is copyrightable, then the original creator of the concept should have rights, and the clones should be considered plagiarism.
If it is not copyrightable, then it doesn’t matter who is the author, and Spotify can just do their own.
All that, and we haven’t even mentioned that Spotify can just change the terms of service and get rid of the white noise podcasts. They are no obligated in anyway to keep a creator that is not worth the business.
There have been claims inside youtube against white noise videos, so at least in their privately managed rights system, white noise is fair game for diverting $ from the poster of the content.
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So what? Of absurdly the whole user base of Spotify got into white noise overnight and ditched music and voice podcasts, where’s the problem?
Users still pay for the premium/family subscriptions, and it’s only fair that creators of the content most listened to are rewarded proportionally.
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Spotify should do a lot of things differently. However as long people pay they won’t
So you didn’t read the article posted by *checks notes* you?
Besides, why should you get to decide who Spotify pays out to? Why are you so worried about whether a giant corporation makes more money?
Why are you so worried about whether a giant corporation makes more money?
Tbf there are a shitton of severely underpaid independent artists on Spotify that make a laughable amount of streaming revenue. They’d at least somewhat benefit from a higher $ / stream rate
You could say they had the audacity to do it
Are we going to try paying artists by the level of effort it took to create a track?
RIP the royalties for Daft Punk’s “Around the World”.
That is far more complex than you would imagine, as is most Daft Punk music. Their sampling is pretty amazing. They do things like take nanoseconds-long samples and put them together into something musical. There are breakdowns of their songs on YouTube and it’s very impressive stuff.
Are you trying to say that took no effort? Instrumental went hard and the talkbox would have taken some time to develop progression. Especially in the 90s, where digital music technology wasn’t widely available. Today, a song like that would be no big deal but at the time, “Around The World” was much ahead of its time.
Man, I never manage to keep up with the lyrics in that song
I’m not sure you understand. Premium users still hear ads on this content. There are free open source apps that generate the same noise without ads.
White noise is literally just this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise
Thanks but I’d rather patch the apk so there are no ads and jack up their bills
I know that. But so what? There’s YouTube videos of guys making half-decent-sounding techno tracks in minutes, and on the other hand some artists spend months on a single track. If people listen to their tracks, they get paid, regardless of how hard it was to produce.
This is that principle taken to it’s logical extreme: tracks that are effectively effortless to produce. But that…doesn’t really change anything, does it? Aside from the fact that the ‘artists’ should expect a hell of a lot of competition (including from Spotify).
So what? They wouldn’t be bitching if people didn’t want that kind of content. Most media is junk. I don’t really see how this is unique?
People play it for their babies at night so Ed sheeran is not missing any cut
they’re the same picture
