I’m a small label owner and I guarantee you that it’s a red herring. they set the price of the service, and you can either upload your music on spotify, or not upload it.
compared to the market before digital platforms, where YOU set the price according to several factors, Spotify is the judge and the jury. they choose what the subscription cost is. they choose what your music is worth. they choose the amount of payout you’re gonna get. this is completely backwards! WE should be the ones, labels and artists, to tell spotify what our cost is, and THEY should be the ones setting their subscriptions on the according price for them to be able to cover all their running costs.
but they put themselves in the dominating position on the market, and contributed to the destruction of the physical market. we got left with no choice but to upload our music on their service and eat shit.
we passed from earning thousands of euro per year in physical and digital sales, to getting 100€ every three months for royalties on spotify. this is unsustainable whatever the way you look at it.
they’re the pirates, and ruined the market much more than what pirate bay ever did.