 Spotify is taking advantage of artists. They don't really care if you're somebody who feels like that and you're not getting your worth, your value from these streaming platforms. We have a proposed solution from the Joe Budden podcast on how you should be using your streaming strategy to make yourself richer and taking advantage of Spotify instead of letting them take advantage of you. We're gonna talk about this strategy and how we think it could work out. The discourse around this was crazy on Twitter. It was going viral. This is yet another episode of No Labels Necessary. Relying on streaming as an income source is an impossible reality, unless you are the kind of the time with it. Relying on streaming as an income source is impossible. It's less, it's more possible than I feel like most people think, but let's play the whole clip. You can do something where it's like, I put it on streaming for a short time and then I take it off and sell only. Like that's the commercial. Yeah, that is on streaming for a month, excuse me. But after that month, I'm pulling it. And now if you want it, you have to purchase it. That's the only way to get it. We already tried that. They already tried that? Yeah, but you remember the exclusive days? That's what I was thinking. This is the reverse exclusive model. Remember they used to start with exclusives and then put it on Spotify. Even saw Jay-Z do stuff like that where he started on Tidal for years and then put some stuff on Spotify. Apple, the Apple chance to rapper deal, he started on Apple and then put it on Spotify. Frank Ocean. That's the typical, right? Exactly, Frank Ocean. But then you got the reverse. I'm gonna put it out there and then if you wanna continue to consume it, then you gotta pay me, right? You gotta come behind my paywall, my Patreon, whatever. That's the idea. Now there's a lot of discourse around this and I think we're gonna get deeper into business models and things you need to consider in terms of how you wanna handle this situation than any other episode we have so far. So please listen if you really take your career seriously because I think there's only a lot of things to think about here, like for real, for real. Because I love the conversation that this had but there's a couple of realities that I think some people don't consider in this. So one, one thing that I think is gonna be beneficial on the positive side because we're gonna go for and against. I think the pros and cons. On the positive side, I'll start. What we probably would see is for people who do have a fan base, they would get more streams in that period of time, right that month than they normally would because of the scarcity aspect. Let me listen as much as possible before I know it's gonna be gone. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I didn't think about that. That would be interesting, right? And then in terms of teasers and things like that, but then that's if you put the whole song out there to the teaser, not just a snippet of the song, because that's weird. We already got social media for that. You can't do that. Yeah, and song's gonna be long enough to do that. What you mean? Well, like we're talking about the snippet would need to at least be 31 seconds, you know what I'm saying? To count and to get the algorithmic push. You know, a lot of songs that they'd be like two minutes, maybe two and a half. So you're talking about a quarter of the song and the snippet's like that point might as well have put the whole thing out. Yeah, so getting into the details of this, right? Different business models and how people actually think around this. Here's a comment from Kennedy Clark. He said, and shout out to Curtis King, by the way, because he was where I first saw these posted on Twitter. Then I started seeing it pop up everywhere else. The biggest roadblock to this is how phones are set up now. Streaming is convenient while buying songs and then listening to those songs requires so many steps it's a turn off to listen to them. Facts, facts, I think, facts. Hey man, I think I speak for all of the lazy music fans out there, you know? I like to think of myself as lazy music fan representative. I'm not doing that, you know what I'm saying? Like I remember what it was like to download songs and buy songs and that two or three extra steps versus me just popping open Spotify and the quick searching that comes up. You can't take that away from me, man. I'm not going for that. Got to think about the people regardless. I think a lot of times we have all these anti-industry sentiments and then think, oh, I'm just going to go over here and do this. But then people get knocked on the head because they realize it's not just the industry itself, all right? A lot of the industry's model is built off of human behavior, the fans. Yeah, fan behavior, yeah. So you're blaming the industry when the industry would like to make more money from the fans too. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't be making more money from what the industry is taking, but trust me, like it's coming from somewhere because other industries and other products are getting more money per stream. You think the industry wants to charge only $12.99 for unlimited songs, right? If they could charge $50.99, you know what I mean? Or $100, like, so some of this constraint is built off of the fans and I think people have to realize that first and foremost. Yeah, nah, I agree with that. It's like artists in the higher label structure, morally on some of those things are fighting the same fight. Like I said, like everybody wants to be paid more. Everybody is wishful thinking, I think at this point because we're so deep into that etch of the human behavior, right? Where it's like, hey, it's not even just the music, right? Like we're seeing this in so many different industries, TV and movies, music, even like sports, probably sound like my TV sometimes, like you can buy like packages of seasons, you know what I'm saying, for like a small fee. So I'm like, oh, everybody is kind of having to bend to the new consumer behavior of like, now I want everything boned up together really neatly and nicely for less than $15 a month or $15 per. And if you can do that, I will consume everything you want to give to me. And if you can't do that, I will leave and go somewhere else. Yeah, I want that infinitely, by the way. Infinite, yeah. I'm going to do this content that you spent five years making in three hours, you know, in three days or whatever. Now I need some more, feed me. It's a crazy beast and it's a model that's unsustainable, nobody's super happy in it, but that's something that has to be considered in these conversations. Because a lot of times I'll go deeper to it like later in this conversation. And we want y'all's comments for this podcast. We really need as much commentary around it, different perspectives, et cetera, let's make this comment section. But those who are watching on YouTube especially, like let's make this one of great substance. I want to hear some ideas that I haven't seen before or what we don't discuss. But artists, it's always like the anti, I know this is like early on, right? For the anti's to exist, they need establishment. One, they need something to push against, right? But also a lot of times you need the structure to then do your own thing, right? So not just to be against like, oh everybody believes this and then now I'm the anti, so I'm counterculture. So there's a need of primary culture to be counterculture, but beyond just the ideals of it, when you talk about functionally, there's a need for structure to be, for the chaos to exist, right? Because everybody can't be in chaos, you know what I mean? So if there's no structured industry and all artists became their own little businesses, the numbers wouldn't pan out like artists think. And what you'll end up finding instead of artists hating the industry, artists will be hating on artists like they're hating on the industry. Like why does his app got 5,000 people? For whatever reason. People will find ways, right? Because then you'll find the people who are more business savvy at the end of the day, the ones who are more business savvy, more connected, personality connected, it's still gonna become something. Artists will begin to click up more, right? Because it's just going to be the model, right? It has to exist, structure will find its way to exist and then there's always gonna be people who aren't a part of whatever the core structure is. And people don't account for that sometimes. It's like, yeah, you would be losing in this other model too, you actually might have a better chance in this model. Cause you aren't LaRussell, you aren't Russ, you get what I'm saying? And I'm not just to say to him that you aren't Nipsey Hustle, you don't have that type of hustle mentality. You just want to create the music? Like boy, if you talk about, there was music industry andarchy out there then just creating the music, you really aren't gonna get the money. Now that's a good point. Cause you made me think about something I hadn't thought about before, right? But you look at the streaming model, right? And the way it's set up is the work and effort of the bigger artist brings attention to the smaller artists, right? So if it was isolated and Kanye had a platform and Lil Huda fuck whatever had a platform, Kanye is obviously gonna over index and get mostly attention. But in the streaming economy, the attention that Kanye brings to his music has potential to trickle over to somebody that's lesser known because of the algorithm and playlisting and things like that. I didn't even think about that. So it's like by separation, you really isolate yourself to whatever you can provide. And we already know artists have an issue with, a lot of artists have an issue with being able to provide the jump start. To get that music out there. It might be one of the few places that trickle down economics does have some pre-clearance, right? Yeah. But on the other end, when you look at that, to do it properly, I saw some platform in the comments and I don't know how much they, because they say they're solving this problem or working on this problem. But to do this properly, because I didn't actually look at what they're doing, you have to have a streaming platform still. It can't be like iTunes or download to my device locally, that type of thing. It needs to be basically Spotify. And then you allow everybody to charge for their money. I mean, charge for their work on the platform, but I'm consuming it out of the same library. So that part still has to say consistent, which means that company would probably be more of a payment processor in terms of their model, all right, versus getting paid per stream. It was like, oh, I paid $5 to listen to your music and then I paid $20 to listen to, I don't know, a Jay-Z track and I paid $50 for this other track, right? Yeah. And then me as a company, I get money from that and you get to get whatever you decide to be worth, which is also gonna be pressed down based on whatever the fans are willing to pay, all right? But from a fan experience standpoint, I get to have it all in this consistent library. That to me is probably the most likely solution, generally speaking, but I still even got thoughts about that, but the point is, why that has to be a thing? We go back to the isolated platform model, right? An isolated platform model, fans aren't trying to pay for another subscription. So people don't wanna pay for more subscriptions now. You think dividing every artist up to their own individual subscription is gonna work. And letting them pick the price? Yes. It's why recurring revenue programs like a Patreon isn't going to work for most artists. It's not gonna, like a paid group or something isn't gonna work for most artists. Why? Because if everybody does that, then now it's too much. But having a few artists do it, so that's the balance. It's like, oh yeah, you have this insert special artist who has their situation moving in one way. I have my, let's say my paid community where I have where you're paying me kind of like a Patreon, right? And they're paying me just for the music, not any extra, like there's gonna be a certain set of artists that can exist because this structure exists. Remember, that's the counterculture to this. There's gonna be some other artists that do all types of unique things, but everybody can't do that. Once everybody does it, then shit goes sideways. Yeah, nah, it would literally force music fans who have to physically sit down and figure out who are the artists they'd like enough to wanna support in a way that fans don't really have to think about it that deeply. They don't. I will argue probably 80% of the artists they listen to. Once tour season starts and people start selling merch, you have to kind of make that decision, but in your listening habits, I don't really have to sit down and think like, damn, do I feel like supporting Con Adderdale? Do I feel like supporting Lil' Whoever? But in that model, I have to literally look at, you know what, we're talking about the average streaming platform price as well between like nine and $15 a month. You know what I'm saying? So now, I don't know, if I got a media budget of a hundred a month, you're telling me I can only pick between like six people, you know what I'm saying? I have to now decide that I like you enough to do that. And then somebody new comes along and now I gotta decide who do I wanna bump out to start to be able to support this person? That should be chaos, bro. It'll be terrible. At L.J. The Giant, L.J. The Giant said, as a fan of music, I just buy vinyls and merch to support artists, all right? That exists, that's something we're already doing. I don't think it's a good idea to make things difficult for your average fan to access your music. I still haven't heard Donda 2 and I already have the STEM player, L.O.L. It was just too much of a hassle, in my opinion. I already bought the thing. Still the one, bro. But I can't consume it. And that sounds good. He still paid me money, but low quality experiences on the long tail is gonna stop your money and stop your branding. So I was like, yeah, I bought the STEM player, but I never consumed it. Now you don't get to do all of the things that come from manipulating the people who consume the music, right? Selling them additional things. The concert periods aren't as rich or whatever. Just things are smaller because you gated it. Even if they have the thing, it's harder to experience. That is an additional gait. And I think what people miss, right? We already talked about the fans, right? Being into the funnel. I think, I saw another comment, actually. Here it is. This might generate revenue, but if this was at Pastel East, by the way, ETH. This might generate revenue, but if your goal is impact and longevity, it might work against you. How many Kanye fans have actually heard Donda 2, which was exclusive to the STEM player? That's crazy. They're on two catching strays. It is. Two people in here. This is not them quote to their comment. This is two separate people. And it's a real thing. So this is what I'm saying. People don't realize. I thought about it with Prince earlier. This is like maybe 2006 to 10 or whatever. I was on YouTube in that period listening to all this music. Prince was not on YouTube at all. And I wanted to consume. I mess with Prince already. I had to agree because of what I knew of Prince and my dad would be talking about Prince or all that stuff, shoot from Dave Chappelle, all that. I mess with Prince. But I wanted to hear more of his music to really, really know his music catalog. And I couldn't. I couldn't find it nowhere. And only way to get it was to buy it, buy it. I didn't even know how to buy music, for real. And I never went to figure out how to buy music. I just didn't. And I hated it because I had as much respect for him as I did because I came from such a musical background. But I was like, man, people who don't even know him, they're not gonna have time to discover him. Like the other young people aren't gonna, like after the generations, after he's just gonna like be gone. Not cause he's not good, but because nobody else can discover him and get close to him, past the generation that already rocks with him. Fast four years later, I can't remember if it was before or after he passed, but now he has more stuff that's out on YouTube. He released the catalog, you know, and all that. He was notorious for just getting rid of stuff. So it goes back to that longevity. Like the long till people can experience you, if you're behind this gate, it becomes akin to geographically, basically, to experience you, I actually have to travel to, I don't know, rural Idaho to actually listen to your music. Geographically, on the internet version of that, right? I have to go find this place, go and go this journey to be able to consume you and there's a push and pull. You get more money in the short term. So maybe the mile becomes, I do more, some things out there and I do some things gated. I do something, but not, but to make your entire model gated, there's a reason that this doesn't exist. There's a reason that this does not exist. I promise you, it's so much harder when it comes to the economics. Like these are just basic numbers. Yeah, yeah. And I love the emphasis on the impact, right? Because not only are you shortening your impact on people, you're also shortening the impact that people can have on you, right? So, I've always looked at the intel of fan consumer behavior is how they react to the music once they hear it, right? So it's like, I think there's a part of a fan's brain that understands like, hey, I'm paying a very little amount of money for this thing that you put so much work into, especially if they really follow you and they, or they follow multiple arts enough to see the work that's put into it. Like I was just telling the client, like, you know, what's so fascinating today is that I will argue that our generation of music fans are the most educated about the music industry than any other generation of music fans. So they have a lot more empathy for music artists, maybe than fans of other years. We're sure, we're sure. And so a lot of times the way they will repay the fan is, hey, now I'm gonna go make TikToks to your music to help you get exposure. Now I'm gonna go make sure I play your song in my car so they're all my friends here while we're going to school. Now I'm going to, you know, I got this school project coming up and I'm gonna use your song for the intro to it because I feel like this is the least I can do. Now you cut all that off, you know what I'm saying? Because now it's only the select group of people that do buy into it that have to decide to do all those things and we already know. Shit like that is just a numbers game. It might take you hitting 100,000 people just to get 1,000 people to move. So if you now only have 1,000 people to work, now it might just be 10 people moving around, you know what I'm saying, what you have put out there. So now you're shortening your impact on people and shortening the impact they can have on your career. And I do think it's for sure a short-term play, right? Hey, I can cap right now, I can get my money per fan now, but what we're starting to see is that the real money from music comes from catalog building and adjusting fan behavior over a long time, right? How can I take little Timmy that discovered me today and make sure that he's still a fan of me when he's 50 years old, you know what I'm saying? And still got more disposable income. And it's like, if you can't reach a lot of people to make sure that you not only have new people come in that could possibly hit that, but to also cover the people that are gonna leave, right? Cause you know, we've talked about this before, you're gonna drop some duds, which is gonna turn some people off. It's just, it happens. All of our favorite artists have dropped the song for this matter to go, I don't know, bro, this ain't the one. You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna fall back off you for a little bit. That's a whole pressure that artists don't feel right now where it's like, oh, they're gonna leave me, like watch them cancellations when they don't like this project. Exactly, bro, amen. Y'all ain't never dealt with, what's the shit? Chargeback, bro, when you dealing with a chargeback, a whole different set of issues, bro. So it is like, it's a great short-term play. I do agree with that. But I think it's a terrible long-term play. Cause now, oh my God, bro, it's all coming to me. It's all coming to me when you say it like that too. Because now we talk about artists don't really look at the fact that they're serving fans. We make, they make it so much about them, right? And they don't realize that you're serving somebody in terms of entertainment. They have to enjoy or want to experience this and based on their experience, that is how the relationship continues for bad, good, whatever, that's how your reputation is built. And it's easier with all of this chasm in between, but when it's direct, to that extent, it's pure customer service, baby. Like, bro, like, dog, like you literally are going to feel the brunt, the complaints. It's a whole nother level. Man, man, like just like any other business, like they're judging it like a meal. Every single song, the feedback, the chargebacks, the fraud, purchases. They wanted to hear that project real quick. Just to cancel right after or to use somebody else credit card, all them other things. Look, it just is what it is. Like we talking about at scale in that way. It will be very interesting. But to dig deeper into that mentality that I think people are missing out on is this guy right here at my mind said, who wants to pay for the past, LOL? Oh, shit. That doesn't even like, I can't even make that make sense personally. Like, I almost want to say what do you mean? Because if he's just just generalizing, it's like that song already happened or whatever. Like, I don't connect with that because he's like, but that's how fans, there's people out here that are like, that's how they think. And it's a lot of them. It's a lot more that in the same way I talked about the other day where we were going through all these comments and fans didn't have as much empathy as artists would expect because they're like, yeah, we're working something that we don't, like this is a job that I don't like, right? And you're not willing to do content or things like this. Like there's a lot of people when you look through comments that are not artists, they don't understand the artist complaint outside of maybe not getting your value. But once it gets into the finer details of you're not doing X, Y and Z or you won't or the fact that you have to work to get to a position higher to then experience success and more freedom. Like for them, they just don't connect. I'll just leave it at that. Damien Ritter on the other side, he says, these guys clearly don't work with any successful independent artists today that stream well. I'm not advocating for relying just on streaming. You should have many revenue streams, but there are many independent artists that do. Stop taking advice from these podcasts, LOL. All right, Damien. Damien talking, he's coming. Like that was pretty direct. Man, I ain't never seen Damien talk like that, man. I really haven't. Like that. I was like, bro, that should really touch them, bro. Like. And I think for the people who do work with artists and see what they're making from streaming, there's a lot of artists that are doing 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month. Yes, we have those way bigger numbers than people who are making like 75K. I think there was a Nick D video I saw someone say he was making 75K a month. Kind of price was making like 200K a month. All right, we've seen those numbers. And of course, the big, big artists who are signed to label but probably aren't making it all by themselves and busting it down with somebody else, right? But 5K a month off of streaming, and I know some who aren't even going crazy with content that are making that, right? Yeah, facts. Right? That is a reasonable amount of money, right? Now, the amount of money you have to live and then reinvest in career, like it's a tight rope to walk, right? But when we look at these numbers, we kind of experienced some of this. We ain't gonna go too deep in this, but when the Spotify made the announcement about the 1,000 streams, you saw a lot of artists that realized, oh, wait, I'm good. And I don't even understand why you would not be able to hit this number, all right? There's just different levels of this, different divides of artists that are confused or hurt based on whatever the barriers are. That's what we're going to consistently find. So yeah, shout out to Dane because I don't think people realize at how achievable it is to hit some of these numbers. Know nobody should rely on just streaming because streaming hopefully could be a baseline, right? That covers some expenses, but you still need to make money from other places to be able to reinvest in your career, right? It's like nice to be here, but if I can't put more money into growing it, then eventually that streaming is gonna go down. So I gotta keep feeding that beast too. That's the way I look at that. Maybe we need to do like a graph. I feel like we need a whiteboard stuff more often. So a whiteboard? Yeah, I need to, I really need to like draw stuff out for people to see some of the concepts. I think we could do better at some of that, but this is the free-form pod. Dane, shout out to Dane. By the way, Dane, especially shout out to Dane because he's over at Two Loss now. If y'all don't know about Two Loss, they are the distributor, actually one of the few distributors that we're willing to actually talk about on this platform, promote and support. And now they have given us a little bit of support. So we wanna let y'all know a little bit about Two Loss. Okay, let's do it. Two Loss is a distribution platform that has some pretty dope artists on it. They go underground, but they got the pink sweats. I think 070 Shake is over there. It's on the roster. Guys like Lil Mabu over there for those who acquired that taste as well. I just mean, I know you look controversial. Some dope artists over there. But at the same time, we have some of the artists that are our clients and that we work with that have actually had an excellent experience, not from just a regular streaming. They're not a distro kid, right? You have the distro kid, then you have the label services where they're pretty much a label for real doing it for you. They're that nice in between where artists that do want a little bit of help, like help with streaming, help with just navigating the industry and getting real customer service, right? Yeah. At the end of the day, we've seen a lot of dope people. I mean, we have a lot of dope people and quateness that helped us learn. Like, y'all know, this is a dope platform worth supporting because we're seeing our clients like speak pretty highly of it. So if you wanna check out Two Loss, we encourage you to do it at ASAP while we have this free code for you to hop in and just get a feel for what it looks like versus your current platform. We are in support of it. Go put in no label that's N-O-L-A-B-E-L, no S, just no label when you create your profile and you'll be able to hop in for free. Support or at least check out Two Loss because they're supporting people like us and that helps us put out as much free information as possible. Next comment. At 20Deuce said with all the music dropping, people will forget that song so damn fast. That's a horrible idea. Yes, terrible. Well, and I wanted to touch on, it was a comment before because I felt like it tied in this two right words. Which one? The guy said something about like paying for the past. I think I get what he's saying, man. Okay, what does he mean by that? He's basically saying, I am paying to go backwards, right? We've evolved from downloading music. You know, I can't remember the last time I clicked download on a song. Ugh. You know what I'm saying? At least seven to eight years ago, if I really think about it. That's your ick. 100% for a download link? Crazy, bro, don't send me a download link. Send me a streaming link. At least a YouTube link. But it's like, now I have to pay to go back and in the area with no other media form I really pay attention to is forcing me to do it. So when I go watch my movies, watch my TV shows, watch my sports, like I alluded to, I can stream this shit. I'm good. Download one or two, maybe three apps, and I'm good. And then now when I wanna listen to music, I have to either download this shit or to your point, I got 20 RSI likes and there's 20 different apps I have to pay attention to and pay more. I'm not doing that. I'm too far gone. Like I said, I personally believe I'm the representative of the lazy music fan everywhere. You know what I'm saying? And yeah, I'm not doing that shit. I get it, bro. Like I said, that only model is the streaming platform that allows people to buy on the platform. Like only fans, right? Like, yeah, basically like only fans and all my only fans profiles are on this same space, right? That model, and then maybe you would encourage some people to be free. Like I'm trying to flesh it out and try to make it make sense, right? So it was like, oh yeah, you're a big artist. So you can charge your $5 and this person could charge their five and 10 and $100, whatever. Or this person's running a gimmick so they are doing 1,000 or 2,000 or whatever, right? They're running a play. But then maybe most of the artists are building their base, right? So most of them still have their stuff free, right? On the same platform, but you can do a value ladder up, right? So we're all on the same platform. Some people are charging, some people are not. Some people are charging sometimes. So I'm charging for this particular project but I'm not charging it. So it's all in the same space. I can see that working. That's literally the only fans model. It's crazy, like as you said, I'm like, damn bro, that's how the only fans crazy, they're getting that shit off. You know what I feel like? Maybe you should do some research, man. You can make us rich. Maybe, man, you know, if I got to do it for the sake of the part, bro, I love traversing new territory for information, man. That's the type of person I am. But you know what I feel like if an artist wanted to really see how well their community could take that. And I'm thinking this in real time. So don't judge me and I ain't seen nobody do it yet. Okay. But Instagram has the subscription feature. Okay. The subscription feature allows you, I believe, to pick from a set amount of prices or you can set your own price. I don't remember which one it is. And for those of you that don't know or maybe don't have access to it yet, the subscription is a feature that Instagram wrote out a couple of months ago where fans can pay for access to your content, right? Now what I think an artist could try if they wanted to see is go, set a price, make a cool little visualizer, almost like a canvas or a nine by 16 visualizer with your song on it, upload it, maybe a couple of songs and see how many people like your fan base will pay for that. Because what makes me think you could get a good gauge is like, okay, I don't have to leave and get a new platform. I can steal, at least be in the platform I already know and like and see. And one I would love somebody to try that. Because the skeptic in me says that that shit ain't gonna work. That's what my heart is pushing me towards. You gotta have a pull to make it work. Yeah, the optimist in me says that you might get like 20 people to do it, you know what I'm saying? But again, it's a sacrifice, it's a short-term and long-term play and I think that's what people have to remember. Because you also lose the long tail if you go 10 years into the future. Now you have as many people discovering and consuming passively. Wish that money could have been made up, exactly. This person, duck Arkady says great concept, also think your ads on Instagram and Facebook, et cetera should be oriented to aim towards your website as well to whatever it's current. Ah, it depends, we'll get to that actually. There's this other one that's more relevant in breaking things down. Velvet underscore bastard says. What man? This will, this will work for established artists with a loyal fan base. Mid-sized artists may get a bag in the short-term but may damage their long-term career prospects. And then their new artists should avoid this strategy unless their music is suitable for DJs. I don't quite understand the DJ part. I'll take a moment to process this but I do agree with the first half of that sentence. Should avoid this strategy. They broke it down perfectly. So a lot of times people are saying this stuff and you might see people with fan bases do certain strategies but you're not in that position. You know, since the beginning of this channel basically we've been talking about like don't be busting moves that you're not in position to do. Yes. You know what I mean? If people listening and watching don't take nothing else away from this and we've said this before, right? Streaming platforms are just marketing platforms. Yes. Or they're moving towards being that right. Somebody, even this initial post. Paid marketing. Paid marketing, right. Even this initial post, right. You streaming as a lead magnet and convert listening to a buyer removing from streaming. Well, besides removing from streaming part that first half of that is basically what streaming platforms are trying to get you to do anyway. Hey, use us as a conduit to be discovered by new people and figure out how to make some money off of them. That's the most we could do. We're seeing the literal behavior of the streaming platforms move towards being paid marketing platform. Spotify is the biggest example of it. Spotify in the last two years alone has made massive changes to the back end of their platforms are all pointing to like, we want a little bit of that Facebook money. You know what I'm saying? We want a little bit of that paid advertising money. And in order for us to do that we have to make ourselves a discovery tool and be an asset to you in that. A lot of these moves, like he said, make sense for mid-sized to bigger artists because at those levels the discovery methods have already been figured out or they have enough of an audience that there's some organic discovery coming from word of mouth, you know what I'm saying? People sharing and doing things like that. So if you are not at the level of what that is happening for you, then yeah, this guy's completely right. You're basically shooting yourself in the foot. You are literally asking God one of your biggest chances to be heard and seen by new people. Now, you have other platforms that you figured out how to do that on? Okay, you got other platforms that you figured out how to do that on. Maybe your paid marketing is tight. You know what I'm saying? You're seeing some return. Yeah, like these are cool ideas to experiment with, but I really wish people would see that the same way we've seen it, bro. For the last two years, I have just viewed Spotify as a marketing platform. No different than my Facebook ad manager. No different than my Google ad manager. Only difference is you get paid a little bit of money back to market within it, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and it sucks. We're not saying it's perfect. Like this person said it basically that summarize. Wancho Jack said in my head, now that I understand the music industry a bit more, that's what streaming platforms technically are. Yeah, you technically are already advertising yourself, right? Because he wants, this whole video is basically, hey, we'll just put a snippet or put your music out there for a short term and then bring people back to something. They are lead magnets. That's what you're doing on advertising. Once you get folks to tap into your links, tap into your profile, check out your music, right? Then you push them back somewhere, whether it's your shows, your merch, whatever. You're already doing some version of this, right? You can put out music and then have a secret project, right? A gated project. You already can do some version of this. So getting rid of the streaming platforms probably isn't the smartest move if you want a traditional career. Like you're trying to reach as many people as possible, you know, like make an impact and that way build value in your catalog in a traditional sense. If you just are looking to, you know, make some money, whatever that number is, I'm trying to hit six figures a year or something like that, you could probably figure that out and do that as well, all right? Probably can do that. Okay, everybody do that, no, all right? But can a fair amount of people do that consistently? It's possible. I'll say it's possible. But this, to me, this comes down to something we were talking about before the pot when it comes down to, I think you said it, you were like, I might as well not pay for it or something? Or... Oh, I said I'm not buying music unless it comes with something. At that point, I'm basically not even buying the music. You're buying the thing, right? And when you say comes with something you're talking about maybe it came with a physical vinyl that had a dope enough picture or came with some merch, yeah, I can say that, right? T-shirt, picture, something. And at that point, as a fan, this is fan mentality quarter, right? This isn't marketing advice, this is fan mentality. I'm not buying the music unless it comes with something else, all right, another cost. So I'm not really technically buying the music, I'm buying the thing. And then that's when I said, well, man, man, that's what will I am. And these other clips we've seen of people back in the day have talked about. Music has never been the thing that people have been buying. They've always been buying something else but music has been used to get people to buy something else. And now we're back to that loop. It's full circle. And I think it's a really hard thing to stomach. When I first heard it and thought about it, it was kind of mind blowing, it was weird, right? Cause we do loosely throw that out there. Yeah, we're buying music, we're purchasing it, but are we really? Now we can put a link in the description to that video talking about why people technically don't buy music and never have and why you need to figure out how to monetize beyond that. I think it's mind blowing for anybody who has not seen it. Because I haven't been able to find an argument to why that's not true. You know, that should change my outlook on life. For real, yeah. For real, yeah, cause now I'm looking at what other areas is technically true that's actually happening, right? Check that out in the description. Very, very valuable video. And other than that, this is yet another episode. No labels necessary. I'm Brandon Shaw. And I'm Cory. Yeah, peace.