
Can we afford free music and still pay creators fairly? - skyhitz
We are releasing the alpha version of an ad free music player (Skyhitz - https:&#x2F;&#x2F;skyhitz.io). Our vision is to make music available worldwide at the lowest cost possible, if the community builds itself strongly enough we might be able to enjoy great music for free and without ads. Creators will also be rewarded fairly by building a direct bridge between artists and fans. BTW we also plan to use blockchain technologies to enable payments between the community at a very low cost. What are your thoughts? We are open to hear some innovative ideas to work on.
======
maxwin
"fairly" is hard to achieve. 500k per year for a good singer might seem fair
from my perspective. But the singer who makes millions per year traditionally
will not think it is fair for him or her.

~~~
skyhitz
It's true, by fair I mean being able to match minimum wage income for a small
size fan base (10k fans approximately). This also depends where they are
located at.

------
paulcole
>Can we afford free music and still pay creators fairly?

No. What's going to make you different from literally every other company that
has tried this and failed in the past 20+ years?

~~~
zerr
Why failed? Aren't those companies still thriving well?

~~~
skyhitz
Music tech companies do very well, but they fail at compensating creators
fairly. Spotify's valuation at IPO will be about $20bn, but they completely
fail at paying back music creators. They take more than what they give.
[https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861372/spotify-year-
in-r...](https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/7/9861372/spotify-year-in-review-
artist-payment-royalties)

~~~
zerr
I see. What about don't being greedy, taking less profit and paying more to
creators? Won't it be a sustainable business?

~~~
skyhitz
That would be ideal, and it can be turned into a sustainable business. This
won't happen at big companies though, it would have to emerge from new
startups.

------
gallerdude
This won’t go the way you think!

~~~
skyhitz
It probably won't, but it's interesting to try.

