> locking up joe rogan and whoever to try to put walled gardens around podcasting
Not to mention blowing >$250M of their subscription revenue to lock down one podcaster when most of their subscribers joined for not podcasts. That money could have gone towards paying music artists better rates like Apple Music and Tidal do.
Spending that money was part of their strategy to go for a "bundled" rate for royalties, which 99% (their number) of the US customer base now does. In a nutshell, they can downrate the royalties for music as long as they bundle other things with it- that's why there's books on there now as well. UMG is now fighting it [0] but all the indies are basically fucked as there's no global leverage.
The second part was demonetizing any songs with under 1000 streams per year- they're just taking most of the long tail for themselves now.
Spotify pays on a pro rata model. Something like 70% of their operating revenue is divided amongst license holders based on the number of plays. The only way the majority of artists make more money is if Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, Drake and The Weeknd suddenly fall off the face of the earth and their record labels burst into flames.
All streaming platforms realistically pay out close to the federally-set royalty rate.
Not to mention blowing >$250M of their subscription revenue to lock down one podcaster when most of their subscribers joined for not podcasts. That money could have gone towards paying music artists better rates like Apple Music and Tidal do.