When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not this time.
By adding audiobooks into Spotify’s premium tier, the streaming service now claims it qualifies to pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams, given Spotify now has to pay licensing for both books and music from the same price tag — which will only be a dollar higher than when music was the only premium offering. Additionally, Spotify will reclassify its duo and family subscription plans as bundles as well.
Spotify can die in a fire for all I care. Sail the high seas and if you like an artist buy physical releases/merch/tickets.
So instead of having the artists make the small per stream income, you suggest they get $0? Buying their releases/merch/tickets is irrelevant to the platform. If anything, the model of these streaming platforms is just further shifting to advertisement for artists to drive people to shows.
They make more from what I suggested than they do from Spotify.