Enshittification

I disagree with the sentiment that the music scene is getting worse, we are getting more content than ever but it's also much more discoverable, searchable and groupable.

I was just at an insane EDM festival the other day and all artists there were up and coming 25-30 y/o, people who are touring Europe doing gigs all over the place. They were selected because they are amazing DJ's with their own style, playlist and original songs.

Finding music, an artist or even an album you enjoy is just as hard as it used to be, but go into a local record shop, a local venue and ask them what bands you should check out, you'll see the same spirit people had 20-30 years ago going to gigs.

You know what I think Mr Beato? I think you are heavily out of touch with the modern music scene.

Please remember to use frontends like Grayjay, NewPipe, Freetube or invidio.us to watch videos like these.

Why not post a link to one of those platforms?

Kindof makes me think, there should be a canonical YouTube link that is not youtube.com, that could be use to refer to yt videos without the risk of accidentally clicking it and ending up in yt.

Who else would rather spend 5 minutes reading than 12 minutes watching? Can I get a transcript?

Old-man-yelling-at-cloud energy.

Beato is a great musician, and some of his interviews are pretty cool. I think he's off base on this, hwoever.

Enshittification is how platforms die. To go back to the original article/post by Cory Doctorow that coined the phrase:

Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

Beato isn't wrong that the music industry is well into the cycle of enshittification, he just doesn't identify the actual reasons why. The music industry abused its artists for decades in a way that initially benefitted music consumers, but then the studios/labels/publishers cranked up the prices on consumers too, and then the industry started devouring a lot of the publishers and studios and labels themselves as Spotify and Amazon and others started eating their lunch.

I do think there is a link between music industry enshittification and some negative trends in music. Cory Doctorow and his co-author Rebecca Giblin point out in their book Chokepoint Capitalism that platforms like Spotify prioritize mass production of cheap-to-license "background" music that all blends together in a mush, because they prioritize total volume of listening rather than any particular listening experience.

I thought this was going to be about the declining working conditions and prospects for musicians. Good music is still getting made, and the music industry is making more money than ever - it's just going to fewer and fewer people

Almost all my favorite music was made before I was born. The rest was made mostly before the year 2000. And music has mostly been generic forgettable schlock since then. Rick’s analysis is spot on.

There is a incredible amount of variety in modern music, you just have to look for yourself, and not just eat whatever is fed to you.

My only gripe with modern music, is that almost all live concerts seem to be single-artist now. I don't know if this is an effect of hiphop becoming the biggest genre, but I miss seeing an entire band on stage, not just a rapper and/or a DJ. They are definitely still there, but much less than even 10 years ago.

Rick often goes off on these angry-boomer tangents. I give them a miss.

There is still great music and it is still a great time to consume music. But Beato is right that trap beats, quantized drums, and autotune all suck ass.

I used to like Beatos videos. But honestly if anyone knows about enshittification it's him. He has done some killer interviews the past year, no one can that away from him. But my God his other stuff has just gone down a cliff. I think it was the debut of his website that made him greedy.

Please remember to use frontends like Grayjay, NewPipe, Freetube or invidio.us to watch videos like these.

No thanks. I will use my YouTube Premium account.