Technology

Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx reunite for Back In Action, one of several big premieres on Netflix this January.

Make 2025 the year of sleep quality with these simple resolutions.

Try using these simple happiness hacks if you've been feeling down.

Protect your privacy and stream your favorite US content while traveling with the best VPN for Japan.

A good microwave is a kitchen essential, but the options are nearly unlimited. We've carefully picked the best microwaves on the market that deserve a spot in your kitchen.

These Australian VPNs work best to encrypt your data, access US content and browse anonymously while traveling.

Hearing aids are easy to purchase, but which OTC hearing aids should you get? CNET's experts evaluated the top options to find the best ones for you.

Searching for the best internet in Tucson? CNET’s broadband experts have identified the leading providers, making it easier to find the right option for speed, reliability and affordability.

My partner and I are searching for a mattress we both find comfortable. Will Nectar Premier be the bed that saves us from sleep divorce?

With Spotify Wrapped hype dying down, I’ve had a chance to think about my music consumption habits over the last year – I listened to more than 48,000 minutes of music this year on Spotify alone, accounting for about 14% of my waking hours.

That’s a lot of time, and a lot of streams, but as we’ve all come to know that doesn’t necessarily mean a lot of money making it to artists’ pockets. How could it? I pay the equivalent of $14 each month for my Spotify premium membership, and at a going rate of about 800 streams per month, there’s only space for a penny or two per play at the very most.

According to Ditto Music, Spotify pays out a maximum of $0.005 per stream. I’m not the first person to find this a touch unfair – we’ve seen calls for boycotts from the likes of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, while others like the late Prince have had their discographies pulled (though this was later restored.)

However, as lopsided as I find Spotify’s payout mechanism, I can’t stay mad at consumers for taking a good deal. Spotify is cheap, easy to use, and one of the most widely supported apps in modern tech history, found on smartphones, tablets, browsers, TVs, smart speakers, cars, and even fridges.

An album purchased for $10 could be worth more than weeks or even months of streams

Luckily, there is an alternative: Bandcamp.

For those not familiar, Bandcamp is an online music storefront with some streaming features that primarily serves as a way for artists to distribute their music at a fairer price. The site is owned by Songtradr, a massive music licensing company, so it’s not fully ‘independent’, but nevertheless offers artists a 85/15 revenue split in the artist’s favor for digital music. This means an album purchased for $10 could be worth more than weeks or even months of an individual listener’s streams.

I started using Bandcamp years ago as a way to seek out independent artists and collect higher quality versions of some of my favourite underground albums, and have since switched to using it to source tracks for DJing. But in 2025 I’ll be making an effort to use Bandcamp more for casual listening and genre deep-dives, as well as a source of new material.

Top tips for starting out on Bandcamp

1. Make a free account

Bandcamp allows users to make free fan and artists accounts to purchase and upload music. You can also link different accounts under one email address, meaning you can keep your collections separate by genre or era if you like.

2. Scroll down to the digging area

Scrolling down through the homepage reveals a cluster of genre tags. Clicking one will take you to the search area, where you can look through best sellers and new releases alike. You can preview each release's standout track, or click on them to go to the artist's page.

3. Start your collection

Once you've found some releases you're grooving to, head to the checkout to add them to your collection. You'll get instant access to unlimited streaming, the ability to download in various formats (including lossless WAV and FLAC), and the knowledge that your money has (mostly) gone straight to the artists who made the music.

We’ve come to a point where digital media has a very low monetary value, which affects its perceived value too. Listening to 800 songs a month costs $14, playing 800 hours of a discounted video game costs $10, and watching 800 hours of video on YouTube costs nothing at all. This is often linked to a lack of tangibility, of physicality. Yet speaking from experience, even having a digital copy of an album or song in your purchased collection offers a sense of investment that is simply missing from streaming. It makes you want to connect with the music, to find the value in your purchase.

For reference, Bandcamp's home page proudly displays that fans have paid artists $1.42 billion since the site's launch in 2007.

There are other benefits to buying on Bandcamp too – the site only allows artists to upload lossless files, so you know you’re getting a high-quality version of whichever tune you’re downloading. I’m no audiophile – I previously wrote about my affinity for listening through phone speakers – but if you do want to get a nice set of speakers or headphones out, an album downloaded from Bandcamp will smoke anything on Spotify in terms of quality.

And, as my use of Bandcamp tracks for DJing implies, you can actually do what you like with the music: put it on any device, remix it with music software, stick it on a USB and play it through some decks. Spotify and apps like it relegate the listening experience to one place, but Bandcamp actively encourages you to think bigger.

If you do want to get a nice set of speakers or headphones out, an album downloaded from Bandcamp will smoke anything on Spotify in terms of quality

There’s something to be said also about escaping the algorithm apocalypse. Spotify’s recommendation algorithms are so accurate and so powerful that even when I go looking for new music, I often feel like I find subtle variations of what I already know. Bandcamp’s search feature has three main tabs – best-selling, new releases, and surprise me, the latter seemingly combining the first two.

I’ve found some truly bizarre and truly excellent music with this combo of choices – especially as there are plenty of smaller and more mysterious artists on Bandcamp that you’ll find nowhere else. My latest obsession is the German techno auteur Skee Mask, who pulled his discography from Spotify years ago for political reasons.

If I’d never stepped onto Bandcamp there’s a chance I’d never have heard Skee’s uniquely ethereal take on dance music, or followed him to a live show in London last month. It certainly feels like a much more organic progression than clicking a sponsored playlist on Spotify’s landing page.

(Image credit: Bandcamp / Future)

That all said, I probably won’t be ditching Spotify any time soon. Bandcamp is still missing a lot of mainstream heavy hitters, artists like Beyonce or Kendrick Lamar who make enough from standard distribution. Spotify remains the most cost-effective way to build daily playlists and share music with friends – building a Bandcamp collection can quickly become an expensive endeavour, and there’s no reselling a digital collection like you can with CDs or vinyl.

Regardless, I see Bandcamp as a champion of music’s value in an era of digital overload, and I'm happy to make it the center of my 2025 tech resolution. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is worth more than $7 billion; he is richer than any musician in history. Let me say that again: no musician has ever made as much money as the CEO of Spotify. I’m not calling for a wholesale boycott, as the consumer can’t be blamed for taking a good deal, but I do feel that as a lover of music there’s some pride to be taken in shifting money away from the pockets of billionaires and towards the artists themselves.

You might also like

• Spotify has been filling your recommendations with fake artists and music it barely pays for, according to in-depth report
• The best turntables 2024, chosen by TechRadar experts for all budgets
• AirPods Pro 3's big bet is health-tracking, but would that make you upgrade?

Today only, you can save $65 on this convenient Bella Pro 8-quart digital air fryer in matte black.

From Black Rabbit to The White Lotus, these are the TV shows we can’t wait to see debut—or return—in the coming year.

This bargain scores you up to $99 in savings, and games like Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Bayonetta and Pokemon are up to 50% off, too.

Any question you have, you can skip over Google and ask AI to answer. Here's how to get the best results.

Wearables are going to get better at connecting the dots between your wellness metrics, possibly making them even better health assistants.

We run down all the video game rumors and leaks we know about coming next year.

Here’s what to know about the cheapest and fastest fiber internet provider in the country. CNET has the details on Ziply Fiber.

Discover why some people build muscle faster than others and learn science-backed strategies to optimize your muscle growth and strength training results.

Sanitizing your newborn's bottle is essential, but it's not necessary after they're a few months old

From Bong Joon-ho’s Mickey 17 to James Gunn’s Superman, these are the movies we’re most excited to see next.