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Musicians aren't losing out from streaming music, UK regulator says

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November 2022

Except that artists did make money in the physical model and in the download model, even though labels found ways to rip off artists back then as well.

The streaming model doesn’t work for all but the A-list charting artists.

I have a family member who is a singer-songwriter. One of her tracks has been streamed more than a million times. She hasn’t seen a penny yet.

Typically, the streaming companies pay $0.0033 per steam. So a million streams would pay $3300 to the label. At even a 20% royalty, that’s $660 to the artist. But if the label spent money on marketing, that’s considered a royalty advance that has to earn out. So most artists will never see any money from recording.

Let’s say that the million streams represents 250,000 people each listening 4x. In the 1950’s - 1980’s, that would have generated about $300K and on a 12% royalty, the artist would have gotten $36,000, which is about $284.000 (using 1970 as the base year) in todays dollars.

The Beatles stopped touring in ‘66 and became a studio band until they broke up in 1970. That wouldn’t be possible today.

The streaming model is great for consumers, but it sucks for the artists and it’s not even good for the labels. In the U.S., the entire industry, including the gross of the streaming companies, is 60% of its former peak, adjusted for inflation.

Apple's features graveyard: Once heavily marketed, now gone

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August 2022

sflagel said:

This is not a long list, and some of it is a bit daft. Not supporting headphone jack and Intel chips? Why not include: not supporting CD-ROM, 30-pin connector, VGA Port? I miss Front Row the most, and Automator.

Everyone will miss different things that they found useful to them. I only "accept" the loss of the headphone jack because I can use a traditional headphone with a dongle (on the iPhone). I will not use Bluetooth earbuds, both because I don't want Bluetooth passing through my brain and because I refuse to buy any product in which the batteries can't be user replaced. Using a device in which the rechargeable batteries eventually die and can't be replaced is both a scam and bad for the environment. (Yes, I know it's the same in the Mac, but I have no choice there.)

And I actually still use CD-ROM. I run a site that contains much audio and it's useful for some of the contributors to ship CD's rather than dropbox the large files. Also, I have a record collection of over 2000 albums which I do not want to re-buy on Apple Music (or subscribe) and CD is a useful method of transferring them over.

But I completely understand people who have no use for those things. Different strokes for different folks and all that.

The fact remains though that when Apple chose to remove the DVD/CD drive from the Mac, it wasn't because of declining use of that technology at the time (and Apple never supported Blu-ray, which they should have). It was simply because Ive wanted to have a thinner case.

Apple agrees to $50M settlement in MacBook butterfly keyboard lawsuit

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July 2022

Many of the key caps wore away on my late 2016 MBP and one broke off completely. I bought a set of key caps from a third party, but I broke two of the clips in the underlying keyboard in the process, so those caps just sit there loose. One is the Pipe key, so that’s hardly used, but the other is the N key. Other than that, the keyboard itself still works okay.

I can’t remember if I signed up for the lawsuit or not.

I’ll probably wind up replacing the machine anyway once the M2 MBP 16” is released, although if it weren’t for the keyboard and the fact that the battery is essentially dead (Apple wants something like $600 to replace it), I’d probably wait another year.

Nikon done with DSLR, focusing on mirrorless digital cameras

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July 2022

The Nikkei article is garbage journalism that quotes no sources. While it has been quite obvious for some time that Nikon was not going to release any new DSLR’s or F-mount lenses, they are not yet leaving that business.

The D6, D780, D3500, D850 and D7500 are all in stock at NikonUSA.

The way that you tell when something is beginning the end-of-life process at Nikon is when it’s discontinued in Japan. Of the above five cameras, only the D3500 is discontinued in Japan.

Year to date from Japanese companies, DSLR’s have a 36.4% unit share (of DSLR + mirrorless), but only a 16.5% shipped value share, according to CIPA.

But especially compared to the smartphone market, the entire removable lens photography market is small enough to be a rounding era. YTD, only 748,000 DSLR’s, 1.3 million mirrorless, and 3.6 million lenses have been shipped by Japanese companies worldwide.