Can Blocking Ads Help Artists?

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From The Trichordist:

In the fight for fair pay artists are not at war with the Internet or really even the streaming services, we are at war with the online advertising industry.   As we have demonstrated time and time again, subscription (paid) music streaming services pay at least 7 times the rate that the free services pay.   When you see artists (like myself) post absurdly low royalty payments it’s usually from one of the services that is predominately ad supported. Above is a chart that illustrates this nicely.

So for artists the solution seems easy:  get rid of ad-supported free tiers.  The problem is that in order to do away with these ad-supported tiers we have to fight not just the music streaming services but we have to fight the real power behind the throne:  the online advertising industry which is dominated by Google. Indeed all three ad supported services above rely on Google to serve their ads.

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So what would happen if most consumers decided to block ads?

First of all it’s not a question of if consumers will block ads but when.  Consumers have grown increasingly suspicious of the entire ad tech industry.  It’s not just the annoying banners, pop-ups and pre-rolls that slow down our browsing experience, consumers have finally become aware of the industrial scale data mining and spying operations used by the online advertising industry. These companies are tracking virtually every web page you visit and often know your physical location to within a few meters.

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While it’s relatively easy now to block pop-ups and banner ads it’s more difficult to block ads on Spotify and YouTube.   But it is doable (if a little clunky)  and it is only a matter of time before ad blocking technology catches up with the streaming services. Apple has announced its intention to allow ad blocking in the newest IOS.  It’s unclear if this will eventually block ads in Spotify and YouTube but most users would welcome it.

So what happens to artists if this happens?  If it becomes suddenly possible to block all ads?

In the short term artists would lose revenue.   But it is not as bad as you think.  If ALL the free streams on Spotify went away IMMEDIATELY artists would see their Spotify payments drop only 16%.

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YouTube is the biggest digital platform of all. Yet as a songwriter I received $12.87 from YouTube last quarter.  By my calculations YouTube paid all rights holders (label/publisher/songwriter) less than $340 for access to my catalogue.  YouTube revenue is not gonna save artists and or the industry at large.   I will barely miss it.  And YouTube is clearly inhibiting the growth of subscription services that pay higher revenues.

Link to the rest at The Trichordist

1 thought on “Can Blocking Ads Help Artists?”

  1. So for artists the solution seems easy: get rid of ad-supported free tiers.

    Construction contractors are delayed by rain, and lose money. The solution is easy. Get rid of rain.

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