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.
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.
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.
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.
From the article: “Once Spotify realized how much attention was going to white noise podcasts, the company considered removing these shows from the talk feed and prohibiting future uploads while redirecting the audience towards comparable programming that was more economical for Spotify — doing so, according to the document, would boost Spotify’s annual gross profit by €35 million, or $38 million.” That doesn’t sound like it’s costing them $38 million, it sounds like they are speculating they COULD make $38 million. I was confused as to how they would be losing money.
So the problem is that white noise doesn’t compress very easily.
Compression algorithms are generally designed to reduce noise; if you have something that’s extremely noisy it’s really hard to compress because that’s not what the algorithms were designed to do.
This means that these podcasts take up more space, which means they use more bandwidth than an equivalent non-white-noise solution.
A middle ground would be banning these “podcasts” and then having a white noise generator built into the app. The white noise generator would run locally on your device (very easy to make white noise) and wouldn’t cost any bandwidth at all.
It’s not just actual “white noise.” It’s many kinds of background noise like nature sounds, etc. Has to be recorded and often edited.
It’s a legit product that makes sp0tify more valuable. They should embrace it but they’re fucking morons who hate both their artists and their audience.
Fuck sp0tify a million times. I really hate them.
What do you recommend to me so I can easily download and discover music that’s not spotify. You hate them but it seems they’re the top of the game right now
Bandcamp has recommendations
Allmusic.com has “similar artists” and browse-by-genre and -style (and mood and theme etc)
Everything you listen to on YouTube sends you down a new rabbithole
Discogs.com has recommendations
Allmusic is 100% my favorite place to find new recommendations. I get to actively hunt instead of being fed by an algorithm (though they have too many ads now).
If you absolutely must be a $p0tify zombie who is mentally unable to find recommendations literally everywhere else in our music-obsessed world then you can still buy the albums you like to actually support the artists instead of basically pirating through a big tech app.
Another solution then: automatically download/cache a user’s most frequently played tracks. I know downloading is a premium feature or whatever but they should consider it if it would save them money.
Not just frequently played tracks. Sell me the MP3 or WAV or FLAC file, give most of the money to the artist, and let me transfer the files to any device I want. Anything less is too restrictive.
Can’t Spotify make their own in-app white noise (generated locally rather than streamed), and push it to the top of their own search results for “white noise”?
If they block the stuff people like, won’t they lose the revenue brought in by those people?
Only of those people subscribed to Spotify to listen to white noise. I suspect it’s a side effect…
A side effect of what? I’m really not following sp0tify’s problem with this. If people are listening to it then people are hearing the advertisements. How would they make more money without these popular streams?
I suspect that most people don’t subscribe to Spotify to listen to white noise but other music. So they might not lose a lot of revenue because white noise is not their core value proposition.
But in those times when a user wants white noise, and if sp0tify doesn’t provide it, are we sure they’re going to listen to something else on sp0tify rather than listening to white noise from another provider?
It just seems ridiculous to deny listeners something they seem to really like that you’re already providing.
Streaming and hosting white noise on their servers costs them money, most people who are using these podcasts probably just do it while they’re asleep and happen to have a spotify subscription. These people aren’t going to cancel a subscription because they need another app for white noise.
Spotify could add a generator for white noise soundscapes to their app, but there are countless applications that do this already for free, including open source options. If they aren’t giving money to people uploading soundscapes, they can take more money from monthly subscriptions themselves and give more to artists, increasing their profits and making their platform more desirable than their competitors, which has been an issue for them in the past with criticism from major artists and indies alike.
Overall these noise streams exist to game the system by getting people to play for a long time on content that’s probably just made by hitting the play button on a generator app written by someone other than the uploader, and it’s likely the only reason it happens is people don’t want to download an additional free app for that task
You’re making a lot of assumptions. If people are paying for sp0tify, let them listen to what they choose (within the restrctive enclosure of a streaming app). If advertisers are paying per play, then they’re paying sp0tify when people stream white noise.
Sp0tify is pirating. That’s bad enough. But now they want to dictate what you’re allowed to pirate. Gross.
…But, why?
I can download a white noise app for free, and never have to worry about any advertising at all. Why would I insist on listening to one that’s going to have irregular breaks to tell me that I should use Nord VPN, play Raid: Shadow Legends, or get therapy through Better Help? (Caveat: I actually use Nord VPN, and have for about six years, but I’m probably switching to Mulvad or Proton in a month.)
