One of my several favorite albums of 2013 has been Luke Temple’s Good Mood Fool, which at times, sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel or Paul Simon if I actually liked Peter Gabriel or Paul Simon. (Maybe I’m turning old. I’ll have to listen to some Wipers this month as penance.)
The way I consumed Good Mood Fool was by listening to it about 10 times in its entirety on Spotify. At my age, when I really like something, that’s about enough for me. For this privilege, I paid $0, and was barely subject to any advertising that I can remember.
Since I use the free version of Spotify, Luke Temple’s label would have earned, optimistically, about 50 cents from this transaction. Assuming that his label, Secretly Canadian, takes half of this, Temple himself stands to earn about 25 cents for making an album I really enjoyed and spent several hours of my life listening to. But here’s the thing: I would have been willing to pay more. The only problem is that nobody asked me to.
Had I been cut off after hearing this album 4 times, and was asked to pony up $5-$10 to unlock unlimited plays, I would have done it. If I was only able to listen to 3 or 4 tracks and had to pay $5-$10 to unlock the rest, I would have done it. If I had to upgrade to the premium service, which pays out a higher rate to the artist, I would have done it.
But no one asked me to do any of these things. So here I am, listening to music in the format I always dreamed of as a kid: With the ability to pull up any of the world’s music instantly and in high quality, and I am paying $0 out of my pocket for it. I’m not even subjected to nearly enough advertisements for me to be aware that there are advertisements.
So please remember: I am happy to give you more money. But you have to ask. And you have to give me a reason to. (“Pay more so that you’ll hear zero ads” instead of “essentially zero ads” does not count as a “reason.”)
Whenever you are doing things for others that they appreciate, you are worth something to them. Remember that. Ask me to pay you more. And give me a good reason to do it.