Spotify dominates right now because it’s stupid easy. Instead of scrolling through densely and obscurely named files on a server somewhere, you clicked through the simple graphical interface and downloaded what you wanted. Early versions of iTunes made it easy to buy music. The conventional history of digital music claims that Apple put the kibosh on Napster and MP3-stealing not through legal action but through design. If an individual track is in your library now, will it be there next week or next year? Will it be labeled “unavailable” or removed entirely? Music is constantly appearing and disappearing on the service. Spotify and other streaming services make it easy to listen to new music, but they also make that listening precarious. In other words, writes Kastrenakes, “Swift and her label are in the extremely uncommon position of having the power to pull this off and likely benefit from it.” By limiting fans’s effortless access to her entire discography, they might be able to incentivize them to buy its newest member. Swift’s newest, 1989, might be the first album released in 2014 to go platinum-that is, sell more than 1 million copies. And if that artist was famous enough, it might even get people talking about how dismal the new economics of music are.īut did such noble reasoning prompt Swift’s hasty flight? At The Verge, Jacob Kastrenakes isn’t so sure. With that math, it seemed likely that an artist would pull their music from the service someday. Later that year, a Buzzfeed reporter couldn’t figure out the per-stream price of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.” One source told her it made 19 cents per 60 streams another said it made. She made less than $300 from Spotify during that same period. In late 2011 and early 2012, cellist Zoe Keating made 97 percent of her income, almost $82,000, from folks buying her music as CDs or MP3s. We’ve known for a while that Spotify’s economics simply don’t work for musicians. Spotify dominates because it’s stupid easy-like iTunes once was.
Swift’s old albums-though not her newest, 1989-are still available on smaller streaming services, like Rdio and Beats Music. “We hope she’ll change her mind and join us in building a new music economy that works for everyone.” “We love Taylor Swift, and our more than 40 million users love her even more,” says Spotify’s announcement. The change was announced in a Spotify corporate blog post that even the Gray Lady called passive-aggressive, entitled “ On Taylor Swift’s Decision To Remove Her Music from Spotify.” On Monday, Taylor Swift removed her entire back catalog from the streaming service. Spotify users who want to listen to old Taylor Swift albums might now be seeing red.
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