Notices by Cat Lady Kydia Music (kydiamusic@mastodon.social), page 4

My spouse spoils Doots by putting his food dish in the kitchen window so he can sort of dine al fresco and watch the birdies. 💀 :smug:

#AllCatsAreBeautiful #DootsToots #CatsOfMastodon #CatsOfFediverse #Cats #Cat #Caturday

You’d have this much swagger too, if someone told you every day of your life that you were a very pretty boi.

Happy Thorsday!

#AllCatsAreBeautiful #Thorsday #ThorToots #CatsOfMastodon #CatsOfFediverse #Catstodon #Cats #Caturday #RagdollCats

“Humans are a social species down to our core; the more modern life erodes our opportunities for actual human companionship — whether it’s by interposing technology as an intermediary into every interaction, or sucking up all our time with the capitalist/consumerist grind — the more desperate we’ll become for friendly-sounding volleyball substitutes.”

https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/language-is-a-poor-heuristic-for-intelligence/

#AI #TuringTest #AGI #OpenAI #LLM #ChatGPT #AGI

“Here’s the paradox: even while the language fluency fools us into imagining these chatbots are ‘persons’, we simultaneously place far more trust in their accuracy than we would with any real human. That’s because the fact that we still know it’s a computer activates another, more modern rule of thumb: that computer-generated information is accurate and trustworthy.”

It’s a brilliant essay; I highly recommend you take the time to read it.

https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/language-is-a-poor-heuristic-for-intelligence/

#AI #OpenAi #ChatGPT #LLM

LADIES, TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!

You never know what those 🚩 🚩 may reveal.

A man who sued more than two dozen women for calling him “clingy” and “psycho” was just sentenced to a year in federal prison for tax fraud and generating mob-connected earnings from gambling machines. During his trial, his lawyers defended him by calling their client too stupid to be held accountable.

https://www.404media.co/are-we-dating-the-same-guy-nikko-dambrosio-tax-fraud/

#Dating #OnLineDating #AreWeDatingTheSameGuy #404Media

@gamingonlinux

Geologists are still debating whether or not soft rock is safe for consumption.

FYI no streaming service pays more than US $0.01 per stream. And that’s at the very top end, with a premium paying customer in a premium market.

I found this article explaining how streams are calculated helpful:
https://soundcharts.com/blog/music-streaming-rates-payouts
Lots of variables like country, service tier, content pool & user engagement factor in, making the "average" per stream unpredictable.

Tidal & Qobuz pay more per stream b/c they have less streams overall--making every stream more valuable. 1/

The reason so many musicians are still on Spotify is because about 30% of all streams come from Spotify, with all the other streaming services trailing far behind. Spotify is still the number one place a lot of artists get discovered, and see the largest amount of revenue just from sheer volume, rather than per stream.

https://explodingtopics.com/blog/music-streaming-stats

The reason most listeners are on Spotify is b/c they have first in market brand recognition as a standalone streaming service.

5/

3. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invests in AI technology for the military industrial complex and Spotify hosts several podcasts that also support it

https://inthesetimes.com/article/spotify-military-industrial-complex-daniel-ek-prima-materia-helsing

4/

2. Spotify has a contract with podcaster Joe Rogan, giving him millions to spew his bullshit

https://apnews.com/article/joe-rogan-spotify-deal-76fa0e2c9d4b137f510428528ea6226b

3/

The real takeaway as far as I'm concerned is that we shouldn't split hairs *too* much over which of the other streaming service pays the most per stream.

They are all (currently) better than Spotify for the following reasons:

1. Spotify changed their payout system in April to only pay artists on their streams once they have a track streamed at least 1,000 times in a calendar year.

https://www.musicradar.com/news/spotify-royalty-model-1000-plays

2/

Most Millennials and GenZ use streaming to discover and share new music. If you primarily buy CDs, vinyl, or digital downloads, that's great! More power to you.
But very few of the younger generations are listening to the radio (which is still hard for indies to get on--even independent and college stations), they go to their streaming service of choice to find new music. And a lot of people are discovering music on Tik Tok or Instagram. The majority of younger people, in fact.

8/

I'm not trying to make excuses for them, just trying to explain why Spotify has such a stranglehold on the streaming market.

Even for artists, despite the low amount we receive per stream, Spotify makes it easy to interact with fans and customize profiles and even each song with storylines (if you're on a label) and visuals like 10-second videos (canvases) that help engage and retain listeners. Compared to other platforms, it really excels in helping artists communicate what they're about.

7/

They also have the best interface, loads of curated playlists, and algorithms that actually serve up music a listener is likely to appreciate. Since they added podcasts and books, it makes it even more of a one-stop app/service for most customers' audio-focused entertainment.
And with features like sharing playlists and Spotify Wrapped, they really reinforce the social and community nature of music, and staying with their service in particular.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

6/

And suggesting indie artists must play live to build a following is just not going to work for every type of artist.

-playing live does not work easily for solo musicians in certain genres, without recruiting/hiring other musicians

-some artists live in remote areas with no good local live options

-venues want artists to already HAVE an audience they bring with them. It's the ol' "you need 5 years of experience for this entry level job" conundrum

-it's ableist. Especially w/Covid still here

Most of the streaming services that can stay solvent AND pay artists a fair amount (debatable what that is) are ones that are attached to a larger company like Amazon and Apple that don't have to rely on music as a stand alone business model.

The truth is, music is just not valued enough (has it EVER been?) for most people to be willing to pay much for it. Unless you're the kind of artist that inspires a kind of cult of personality, in which case fans will buy everything you throw at them.

11/

I listen to a lot of music, and I buy a lot of music, although I mostly buy on Bandcamp currently. Most of the major label artists will not be found on Bandcamp, however, so as a streaming service the general population is not interested, b/c they want to listen to Taylor Swift and Drake and not exclusively indie music.

10/

And if someone has ever recommended a song to you and you went to YouTube to check it out, that is also streaming. And yes, YouTube has its own streaming service and can also generate revenue from artists--without the artist having to maintain a dedicated channel or become a YouTuber--although that is also another way indie artists often try to get people to listen to their music.

9/

Suggesting new/indie artists provide physical product (CDs, vinyl, merch) rather than just digital output is also frustrating. First, the cost of manufacturing is front-loaded onto the artist, with no guarantee that those items will all sale, especially when you don't have enough fans to justify the expense. And that's on top of the expense (education, instruments, equipment, studio time) recording the music.

I have boxes of CDs from my old band that no one wants taking up storage space.

13/

Fedivision is a song contest among musical artists here on the Fediverse, in the *spirit* of Eurovision, but the countries are made up and there are no prizes for the winner, just bragging rights.

The entries just became public yesterday, so you have a whole week to listen and vote! https://fedivision.party/

I didn’t enter, but I have been enjoying listening to all the tracks and am having a hard time deciding which to vote for. You get 3 votes this year!

#Fedivision2024 #Fedivision