All posts tagged: YouTube

Posted on Nov 24, 2025 at 11:52 by scott truitt

YouTube is full of ads.  Subscribe to YouTube Premium.  Spotify is full of ads.  Subscribe to Spotify Premium.  Both still track you and sell your data.  But you can’t stop that.  Everything has an ad  in front of it,  over top of it,  sandwiched in the middle of it.  Unskippable ads.  Unescapable bullsh!t. Accept our privacy policy so we can share data with our 837 business partners.  Accept our cookie policy so we can follow you everywhere and manipulate everything you see.  Everything h

Posted on Jul 12, 2025 at 23:00 by scott truitt

My experience in the music industry is slim, but I have studied the tech industry from the inside and out for 30 years. And I can say the following sentence with complete confidence: This moment is as good as it will ever be in the current system. It will only worsen from here, as it has since the needs of platform companies became more important than those of independent artists, labels, and fans. Spotify, YouTube, and the others will not suddenly come to their senses and decide to pay more

Posted on Jan 27, 2025 at 13:54 by scott truitt

Duetti’s 2024 music economics report prompted a nonsensical, fact-free retort from Spotify on Friday, and I’ll bet that was because of these two damning details: 1. Spotify lost a meaningful 2% market share to YouTube, including a 17% shift in electronic music alone in 2024. That’s at odds with the story it tells investors about its runaway growth. 2. Spotify paid 14% less per stream since 2021, even after increasing subscription fees by 20%. That’s at odds with the story it tells artists and