Yeah, it seems weird. I can see the record companies not liking it because people listening to hours of white noise aren’t listening to music, but shouldn’t Spotify be happy if people are in the app at all? Maybe the issue is that they have more of a subscription model, so make more money when people pay the fee without using the bandwidth, but the white noise podcasts use bandwidth for many, many hours?
Not just that but due to the randomness of white noise data it can’t be compressed, so the bandwidth is much higher just because of that factor alone. Think 30mb for a white noise file the same length as a 3mb song.
Honestly I just download the stuff I like to listen to from YouTube using vlc and use the android version of that to just play the group of audio files all on a shuffled loop. Then again, my work asks that phones be in airplane mode in the room I work at (tho is fine with music and Bluetooth headphones, it’s something about interference from the data connection they’re worried about) so I couldn’t use a streaming service for it anyway.
I see you don’t speak capitalism. Allow me to translate: Spotify is not making (enough?) ads money on independent noise creators. Big record labels are not making any money on independent noise creators. These leeches are outraged that they cannot profit onto those paesants’ work, but they say it like they were losing money (that is not true) because they don’t want to sound like leeches.
Do you mean “how do I write a white noise app?” or “what is the best white noise app?”
White noise boils down to generating random numbers and sending it to your audio out. You may want to tweak the distribution to make the noise more pleasant. That shouldn’t be too hard to implement.
For existing white noise apps, IDK I don’t do that. But like, Google knows.
No, I mean for everyone saying that streaming white noise is a waste of bandwidth and resources, what exactly is an easier or faster way of getting white noise than just searching for it on something like Spotify?
Then the question you are asking is “What is the best white noise app?”
YouTube and Spotify have every reason to pull their white noise content. Just Google for “white noise app” and download the first one that isn’t totally sketchy.
Yes but no? A subscriber pays a set amount per month. No matter how much that subscriber listens to music, it’s paid from their monthly subscription fee, right?
So if a subscriber listens to one hour of music versus 10 hours of music, does Spotify pay less royalties for the 1 hour?
Even if they do pay royalties based on listen time, if somebody’s listening to white noise for 24 hours a day, there should be an upper limit to the royalties paid to the monthly subscription right?
I just don’t understand how somebody listens to 10 hours of K-pop every day versus 10 hours of white noise how Spotify is saving money in the second but not the first example
But then the word “costs” is not correct. It doesn’t cost them that money, they just aren’t making money on that time which they might not have anyway.
Don’t they pay music producers/artists/podcasts based on how much people listen to their content? I’m guessing they object because people consume way more white noise due to being asleep. So there aren’t many people who listen to K-pop for 8 hours but lots who do that with white noise. Not to mention if there are any ads you would sleep through them.
A percentage of that goes straight to Spotify’s pockets and the rest goes to what you listen to.
If you listen to music all day, and then have a white noise playlist at night, then half of that amount goes to just the one stream and the other half is split between all the others labels of the music you listen to. Without that white noise playlist the music labels would make twice as much money from you.
Because their platform becomes more desirable for creators. They’ve had issues with this in the past, Taylor Swift pulled all her music from spotify at one point due to the lower than average royalties. That’s a situation they’d like to avoid in the future because it’ll cause people to drop their subscription.
Only reason I could think of is that compressing white noise is very inefficient because of its high entropy. Compression needs patterns and white noise doesn’t really have any.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but Spotify doesn’t actually pay a specific amount per stream. Instead they pay creators based on how much people listen to them from the pool of money they have to pay from. So people repeatedly listening to white noise takes away from the pool of money that could go to actual musicians.
How is white noise costing this much money? Surely the bandwidth isn’t that expensive
And why does Spotify care if they’re paying out white noise creators from the same fun they pay music creators? It’s still time in service right?
Yeah, it seems weird. I can see the record companies not liking it because people listening to hours of white noise aren’t listening to music, but shouldn’t Spotify be happy if people are in the app at all? Maybe the issue is that they have more of a subscription model, so make more money when people pay the fee without using the bandwidth, but the white noise podcasts use bandwidth for many, many hours?
The article certainly doesn’t explain it well.
I think that’s exactly it.
People will leave them playing over night etc.
So they are paying a lot more in bandwidth and royalties.
Not just that but due to the randomness of white noise data it can’t be compressed, so the bandwidth is much higher just because of that factor alone. Think 30mb for a white noise file the same length as a 3mb song.
This is the real reason
I find this hard to believe. True white noise maybe, but it doesn’t need to be that for this use case.
Okay.
That’s an easy fix. Most music streaming services will time out after 30 minutes with an “are you still listening?” prompt.
This is a terrible idea. I use spotify for music at work and if I had to click a prompt every 30 minutes I might as well be watching YouTube videos.
Honestly I just download the stuff I like to listen to from YouTube using vlc and use the android version of that to just play the group of audio files all on a shuffled loop. Then again, my work asks that phones be in airplane mode in the room I work at (tho is fine with music and Bluetooth headphones, it’s something about interference from the data connection they’re worried about) so I couldn’t use a streaming service for it anyway.
This has to be an intentionally bad idea lol, most albums are longer than 30 minutes and this would ruin the flow
As someone who spends 8 hours listening to podcasts every day this sounds like an awful idea
If I have to interact with my phone at any point while I’m driving I’m leaving that service.
A “sleep timer” feature would be a much better suggestion. Audio streaming is not so network-intensive that we need to build in timeouts
As luck would have it, that already exists in Spotify.
I see you don’t speak capitalism. Allow me to translate: Spotify is not making (enough?) ads money on independent noise creators. Big record labels are not making any money on independent noise creators. These leeches are outraged that they cannot profit onto those paesants’ work, but they say it like they were losing money (that is not true) because they don’t want to sound like leeches.
deleted by creator
I actually don’t even like their “products”, I’m just glad that the leeches are not happy.
Compared to the CPU requirements to generate it locally, it is thousands of times more expensive to stream it.
What is the best and fastest way to generate white noise from your computer?
Do you mean “how do I write a white noise app?” or “what is the best white noise app?”
White noise boils down to generating random numbers and sending it to your audio out. You may want to tweak the distribution to make the noise more pleasant. That shouldn’t be too hard to implement.
For existing white noise apps, IDK I don’t do that. But like, Google knows.
No, I mean for everyone saying that streaming white noise is a waste of bandwidth and resources, what exactly is an easier or faster way of getting white noise than just searching for it on something like Spotify?
Turning on a fan usually works for me
Then the question you are asking is “What is the best white noise app?”
YouTube and Spotify have every reason to pull their white noise content. Just Google for “white noise app” and download the first one that isn’t totally sketchy.
So your faster and easier solution is to download an app for something I may need only once?
Cool.
Probably having to pay out money to the podcast for the listeners.
Yes but no? A subscriber pays a set amount per month. No matter how much that subscriber listens to music, it’s paid from their monthly subscription fee, right?
So if a subscriber listens to one hour of music versus 10 hours of music, does Spotify pay less royalties for the 1 hour?
Even if they do pay royalties based on listen time, if somebody’s listening to white noise for 24 hours a day, there should be an upper limit to the royalties paid to the monthly subscription right?
I just don’t understand how somebody listens to 10 hours of K-pop every day versus 10 hours of white noise how Spotify is saving money in the second but not the first example
But then the word “costs” is not correct. It doesn’t cost them that money, they just aren’t making money on that time which they might not have anyway.
Exactly, baby’s nursery for us we leave it on.
Don’t they pay music producers/artists/podcasts based on how much people listen to their content? I’m guessing they object because people consume way more white noise due to being asleep. So there aren’t many people who listen to K-pop for 8 hours but lots who do that with white noise. Not to mention if there are any ads you would sleep through them.
You pay a certain amount a month to Spotify.
A percentage of that goes straight to Spotify’s pockets and the rest goes to what you listen to.
If you listen to music all day, and then have a white noise playlist at night, then half of that amount goes to just the one stream and the other half is split between all the others labels of the music you listen to. Without that white noise playlist the music labels would make twice as much money from you.
I get that, but why would Spotify care about that?
Because their platform becomes more desirable for creators. They’ve had issues with this in the past, Taylor Swift pulled all her music from spotify at one point due to the lower than average royalties. That’s a situation they’d like to avoid in the future because it’ll cause people to drop their subscription.
Because big labels have power. As Spotify you want to keep them happy more than the little guys. Otherwise they can lobby against you.
Only reason I could think of is that compressing white noise is very inefficient because of its high entropy. Compression needs patterns and white noise doesn’t really have any.
That would be true for lossless compression. Audio codecs generally don’t work that way.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but Spotify doesn’t actually pay a specific amount per stream. Instead they pay creators based on how much people listen to them from the pool of money they have to pay from. So people repeatedly listening to white noise takes away from the pool of money that could go to actual musicians.
At first I thought it was something about it being a worst case scenario for compression algorithms, costing bandwidth.