Spotify’s (SPOT) decision not to raise prices on its U.S.-based premium subscription plan speaks volumes about the music streaming giant’s lack of pricing power. At least according to one bearish analyst.
“[It’s] a strategic play. It speaks to the relative competitive weakness of their business compared to these bigger firms that have bigger, larger platforms that bring a lot more to the table,” New Constructs CEO David Trainer told Yahoo Finance Live, referring to recent price hikes from both Apple Music (AAPL) and YouTube Premium (GOOGL)….
Spotify stock, which lost more than two-thirds of its value in 2022, surged more than 12% on Tuesday following the company’s report. The stock is down more than 65% compared to its February 2021 record high.
“There’s a disconnect here between valuation and the underlying economics and fundamentals of the business,” Trainer said. “[Spotify] is an unprofitable business that’s been burning through a lot of cash.”
As we reported February 9, Spotify is using hundreds of millions of its supernormal stock market riches to acquire naming rights to the Barcelona soccer team. The latest manifestation of Daniel Ek’s monopolist edifice complex was confirmed by Music Business World Wide and Variety among others, as well as Spotify itself. Barcelona’s iconic Camp Nou stadium (largest football stadium in Europe) will now be known as Spotify Camp Nou.
I assume that when Netflix finds out about this, there will be an epilogue to their Edward Bernays-style epic corporate biopic that will ignore the Rogan catastrophe but will include the Barcelona deal with a tight shot on the Spotify Camp Nou and probably a t-shirt vendor.
Let us take one clear message from this navel-gazing naming-rights deal to assuage Daniel Ek’s psyche after a losing bid to acquire the Arsenal football club and join the International League of Oligarchs. That message is that we don’t ever want to hear again about how Spotify “can’t make a profit” or “pays out too much money for music.” Daniel Ek–who controls the company through his super voting stock–has been running that diversion play for way too long and it’s just as much BS spewing from his mouth as it is any of the Silicon Valley oligarchs who whinge about how poor they are when they appear in court.
Let us also agree that anyone who takes a royalty deal from any DSP that does not include an allocation for stock valuation is quite simply a rube who must be laughed at and mocked in the Spotify board room. This stock value allocation doesn’t require a grant of shares, but can include a dollar contribution that tracks share value and should be paid directly to both featured artists, session musicians and vocalists through their collective rights organizations on a nonrecoupment basis.
But don’t let me describe the bullshit, read it yourself directly from Spotify’s “Chief Freemium Business Officer” whatever the hell that means:
Statement of Alex Norström, Chief Freemium Business Officer, Spotify
“We could not be more thrilled to be partnering with FC Barcelona to bring the worlds of Music and Football together. From July, our collaboration will offer a global stage to Artists, Players and Fans at the newly-branded Spotify Camp Nou. We have always used our marketing investment to amplify Artists and this partnership will take this approach to a new scale. We’re excited to create new opportunities to connect with FC Barcelona’s worldwide fanbase.
Spotify’s mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity, supporting artists to make a living off their art and connecting with fans. We believe this partnership creates many opportunities to deliver on this mission in unique, imaginative, and impactful ways.”
Yes, that’s right. Daniel Ek’s edifice complex is all about unlocking the potential of human creativity because it’s all for the artists, don’t you know.
These people continue to embarrass themselves with their insufferable 1999er BS without realizing that any artist whose name shows up on a single Barcelona jersey will extract a considerable additional payment that the artist will keep and the labels won’t save Spotify on that one. Even if they do, there are only certain artists who don’t mind their names appearing on Barcelona jerseys–for a price. The overwhelming majority will not only not want it but are insulted that the “Chief Freemium Business Officer” is so ignorant of their name and likeness rights that he would even remotely float the idea that Spotify had the right to do anything like that level of grift.
If Mr. Freemium is really serious about “supporting artists to make a living off their art”, forego the edifice stroke and just pay that money directly to featured artists, session folk, and songwriters that have made him rich. Until then, he should just say you’re damn right we used the stockholders money to soothe Daniel Ek’s wounded ego because he desperately wants to be accepted by the Party of Davos and the League of Extraordinary Dweebs. Because we’ve already established what kind of people they are, it’s just a question of negotiating the price.
But let’s face it–what the monopolist really wants is a branded Monopoly game.
Mansplaining, anyone? If you remember Spotify’s 2014 messaging debacle with Taylor Swift, we always suspected that the Spotify culture actually believed that artists should be grateful for whatever table scraps that Spotify’s ad-supported big pool model threw out to artists. They were only begrudgingly interested in converting free users to paid subscribers, which still pays artists nothing due to the big pool’s hyper-efficient market share revenue distribution model.
And then there was another one of Spotify’s artist and label relations debacles with Epidemic Sound–Spotify’s answer to George Orwell’s “versificator” in the Music Department that produced “countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department.”
The common threads of most of Spotify’s crazy wrong turns–and they are legion–is what they indicate: An incredible heartless arrogance and an utter failure to understand the business they are in. A business that ultimately turns on the artists and the songwriters. As long as there is an Apple Music and the other music streaming platforms, artists can simply walk across the street–which is why Taylor Swift could make Daniel Ek grovel like a little…well, let’s just leave it at grovel.
But–this long history of treating artists and especially songwriters poorly is what makes it so important to preserve Apple Music as a healthy competitor to Spotify and the only thing that stops Spotify from becoming a monopolist. A fact that seems entirely lost on their boy Rep. David Cicilline’s anti-Apple bill that “seems aimed directly at Apple and has Spotify’s litigation against Apple written all over it.” (Mr. Cicilline runs virtually unopposed in his Rhode Island elections, which if you know anything about Rhode Island politics is just the way the “Crimetown” machine likes it.)
Why are ostensibly smart people given to such arrogance? Mostly because they are rich and believe their own hype. But never has that reality been on such public display in all its putridness than in a truly unbelievable exchange at the Sync Summit in 2019 in New York between home town independent artist Ashley Jana and former Spotify engineer Jim Anderson who was being interviewed by Mark Freiser who runs that conference who doesn’t exactly come off like a prize puppy either.
Ashley recorded the entire exchange in (what else) a YouTube video and Digital Music News reported on it recently. Here’s part of the exchange between Ashely and Mr. Anderson after Ashely had the temerity to bring up…money!
Jana: We’re not making any money off of the streams. And I know that you know this, and I’m not trying to put you on the spot. I’m just saying, one cent is really not even that much money if you add 2 million times .01, it’s still not that much. And if you would just consider —
Anderson: Oh, I’m going to go down this road, you know that.
Interviewer (Mark Frieser): This is really not a road we’ve talked about before, but I’m gonna let him do this —
Jana: Thank you again.
Anderson: Do you want me to go down this road? I’m gonna go down this road.
Frieser: Well, if you need to.
Anderson: Wait, do I go down the entitlement road now, or do I wait a minute?
Frieser: Well, you know what, I think you should do what you need to do.
Anderson: Should we do it now?
Frieser: Yeah, whatever you feel you need to do.
Anderson: So maybe I should go down the entitlement road now? Or should I wait a few minutes?
Frieser: Do you want to wait a few minutes? Maybe take another question or two?
Anderson: [to the audience] Do you guys want to talk about entitlement now? Or do we talk about —
[Crowd voices interest in hearing the answer from Anderson]
Jana: I don’t think it’s entitlement to ask for normal rates, like before.
Anderson: Normal rates?
Jana: No, the idea is to make it a win-win situation for all parties.
Anderson: Okay, okay. So we should talk about entitlement. I mean, I have an issue with Taylor Swift’s comments. I have this issue with it, and we’ll call it entitlement. I mean, I consider myself an artist because I’m an inventor, okay? Now, I freely give away my patents for nothing. I never collect royalties on anything.
I think Taylor Swift doesn’t need .00001 more a stream. The problem is this: Spotify was created to solve a problem. The problem was this: piracy and music distribution. The problem was to get artists’ music out there. The problem was not to pay people money.
You really should listen to the entire video to really comprehend the arrogance dripping off of Mr. Anderson’s condescension.
In case you missed it, the creator’s loss is Spotify’s gain. No, today is different than usual, because this time Spotify’s gain is not just tied to the misery of artists and songwriters, it’s actually tied to the whole world. According to TechCrunch:
The coronavirus may be decimating some corners of the economy, but the impact on the digital music, as evidenced by the world’s biggest music streaming company, appears to be minimal. Today Spotify reported its earnings for Q1 with revenues of €1.848 billion ($2 billion at today’s rates) and an inching into a positive net income of $1 million. Monthly active users (not total subscribers) now stand at 286 million, with paid (premium) users at 130 million and ad-supported monthly active users at 163 million. Ad-supported users are growing at a slightly higher rate at the moment, at 32% versus 31%, Spotify said.
So far today, SPOT is up $16 a share, which means Daniel Ek made roughly $656,000,000 today alone. And that doesn’t count the warrants.
So the bubbly is flowing at World Trade Center or wherever the Spotify elites are hiding out.
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