The Smart Speaker Has Dumbed-Down Music?

I get it. The sheer convenience of streaming is so easy in today's need for instant gratification. Sadly though, the facts show that this convenience is set up to reward the CEOs of streaming services, NOT the artists who make the music. Spotify pays roughly $0.04 per 10 streams. Apple Music pays a little bit more. So, 1000 streams would be around $4, and 100,000 streams would be $400. This result may be lower if only half of your song was listened to...which analytics show this is often. These figures really only benefit the well-known artists with huge followings. Us Indie artists just never reach the numbers needed to recoup our production costs. I will say that Spotify and streaming services in general have their place now and do help us promote our ‘brand’. It’s really today’s ‘Radio’ and a good way for us to get heard.

However, if you sell your music on CD using services like Bandcamp, you receive nearly the entire amount of what you charge for your music. And, CDs sound better than streaming digital files, too. If you're streaming music from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music or Tidal, you're listening to a compressed music file.

In my circle, I work and speak with many very well-known, established artists and I'm continually surprised by just how many no longer own a CD player or even a stereo system to hear music in high fidelity...something that was common in years past. For something that we all do for a living, I'm really shocked about this. And to make matters worse, the automobile companies stopped offering CD players in cars too. But if you want to really support your favorite artists, buy their CDs or Vinyl. That's the best way...AND, you get their artwork and credits too.

Check out this video from Darko Audio - "15 Reasons Why I Still Buy CDs". Great video on this topic and in his Reason #9, he states reviews the artist's advantage of physical Vs streaming. Click on the image below