I used a Norwegian open-source tool to analyze my old Spotify data as a customer.
I don't use Spotify anymore, but I can announce that of all the money I ever paid them, approx. 5% went to the artists I listened to.
That is a pretty insane transfer of wealth from the bottom / middle to the top if you ask me.
I already knew Spotify is a big scam for those not at the top, but seeing the numbers still gives me a bodily reaction. π’
money...
hehe! to answer more seriously i buy music on bandcamp, mirlo, and probably soon subvert.
i also buy vinyl and cassette tapes, mostly at shows. i recently digitalized most of the CDs i want to listen to as well.
all the digital flac files i listen to with foobar2000 on my iphone and mac. i just installed fooyin on my linux box as well. the files are stored in the cloud so i can save space on my mac when i don't need an album and they also pop up on the linux box.
haha yes! but maaaaaaybe you don't need access to 25,000+ files wherever you go, hehe!?
also i guess that raid array could have been a nas / plex server if you DO need access to everything.
but for you i could imagine like a monthly selection transfered to your phone or an audio player.
then every month you could change your selection. could be a cool project and a way to explore your library on the go :)
@jaypeach53 @lislegaard @theron29 Oracle give 200gb free afair.
I just run a rpi4 at home with navidrome and some rotating rust
and they could just divvy up the money by user...
What is this tool? I was considering writing one of my own to analyze my listening history that I downloaded before cancelling it.
I can give you a link later or you can search for unwrapped on GitHub by hans Martin Austestad. Banjohans is maybe his username.
It is Norwegian, but probably easy to fork and translate.
I'll go look later, thanks!
@lislegaard
I have never paid Spotify any money, and I have earned exactly $0.01 in royalties through them. Iβm one of the winners, it turns out.
Attached: 1 image Somehow this escaped my notice last quarter. I can no longer say that I've never made a cent from Spotify. I have made a cent.
Here's a link to the blog of J Willgoose from the band Public Service Broadcasting (see the Streaming Payment Rates entry) showing differing payments that bands get from different streaming services.
https://jwillgoose.tumblr.com/
Interesting and informative I think.
Unlike Google to shut a service down.
ah yes of course! my stupid mistake! 
@lislegaard @nyovaya @april I've always joked about it that people pirating my music has earned me more money than Spotify and all the other streaming services combined. Piracy costs me 0 dollars and I gained at minimum 0 dollars. (potentially more if people bought my music after pirating it, but impossible to track that)
Big tech streaming services on the other hand, if memory serves me right, have earned me somewhere around 200 dollars probably in the last 10+ years, but cost me I think 75 dollars a year to keep the music on them. In other words, they've earned me negative 550 dollars.
i remember benn jordan / the flashbulb got sick of apple fucking him over back in the itunes days.
so he torrented his own music and put a text file that said that if you like the music you can donate something into this paypal account.
made more money on the torrented album than on itunes...
@lislegaard Music and money aside just the idea of feeding Spotify all your info seems a worry.
I have loads of artist friends that whinge about AI whilst being completely addicted to Spotify's algorithm hellscape, they are the problem not some AI jazz noises.
also letting an algorithm decide the music for you is maybe not the best way to have music be a connecting force between humans. anoter space for people to be in their own bubbles instead of shared experiences with their community.
@lislegaard Yeah, it's really extreme ime.
Even in selfhosted land people arrive with "But how on earth can you find new music?" The idea of using 'the internet', other humans, the radio or god forbid a shop seems completely alien.
I left Spotify after a, free, year as the music it kept feeding me was so unfathomably awful I was gonna crash the car....and people actually pay them to fuck artists over for this.
being the neigbour country of sweden we got the propaganda early here in norway. and in the beginning it was all humans curating the playlists + i was listening to albums anyways, so it didn't affect my music listening in the beginning. (money aside)
but enshittification is real, so all those curators got fired and replaced by an algorithm.
reminds me of facebook (and the rest of big tech). great for the users in the beginning, ΓΌber-evilcorp fucking us over now.
i wrote a blog post about how to find new music btw
https://www.kristofferlislegaard.com/blog/2025-11-05-be-your-own-algorithm-in-search-of-new-music/
@lislegaard Nice, thanks and will have a peek at some of the artists.
About two years ago I set up a signal groupchat called 'Music' with 10 or so friends around the world, and gave some logins for my navidrome server.
The amount of amazing music it's generated, and rabbit holes, is more than I'm able to even vaguely keep on top of.
some cool tunes here:
https://music-republic-world-traditional.blogspot.com/
I made to have a tiny, free, simple, always on streamer for some of them here:
@lislegaard @groot TBH, I don't understand how anyone has a problem finding new muaic. I discover new genres and musicians all the time, and I've never used spotify.
people tell me irl
someone plays a tune at a bar or social centre I go to
I browse (and buy from) bandcamp
I follow music sharing accounts and music lovers on fedi
I listen to radio streams from all over the world
@firn @lislegaard afaiu the issue is often that new music must be fed to them on demand via an algorithm they can just mash 'next' or 'like' on.
But I appreciate your point, it's like worrying about how one will get to see new cats if they delete facebook.
@groot @lislegaard Over the past few years, I've found that the very, very beat way for me to discover new music is by hosting my radio show, where listeners suggest stuff to me all the time that I've never heard before. It's wonderful!
No algorithm, just human connection.
including the line about how those who pirated the most were also the people who bought the most.
i reeeeeaaaallllyyy remember getting convinced that that was OF COURSE not the case. it's only logic, right?! why would someone who pirated music buy music!?
turns out that was indeed the case, because they were music lovers, and not passive consumers.
daniel ek.
how does this system get around paypal / stripe?
ah! the thing that people bought multiple GPUs for before ai you mean?
pumping up oil and investing in war i think.
sorry not intending to be too trollface here. probably the right place for me to call off this track :)
i don't actually know enough about crypto to bitch too much about it.
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