DistroKid’s unfortunate evolution, Part 1
With DistroKid’s recent history of union busting activity, it’s difficult to currently recommend this platform as a digital distributor for independent musicians. That’s a real shame!
I remember back when DistroKid was the new disrupter, and one of the very first tech platforms to truly open up the digital streaming music space to smaller artists.
What is DistroKid?
DistroKid is a music distribution service, connecting artists to the music streaming platforms that music fans use to consume music.
Most independent artists can’t work directly with large companies to upload their music directly to Apple Music, Spotify, etc. Instead, most large corps require the use of third-party music distribution platforms like DistroKid to get your music on their platforms, if you’re not signed to a record label.
Prior to DistroKid, platforms like CDBaby or Tunecore would charge artists anywhere from $20-$80 per release to upload music to a streamer. DistroKid dropped this price significantly and allowed for more prolific uploading, offering unlimited music uploads for a small monthly fee, something that hadn’t been done before. This allowed smaller artists who might not have label support to access worldwide distribution of their music, for the first time.
Unfortunately, recently this platform has been showing signs of enshittification.
Is there a viable DistroKid alternative?
My opinion: no, not any fully equal alternative, at least not right now.
I haven’t been able to find a digital distribution platform that gets your music on as many platforms, at higher quality, with as many useful features, for less money. Unfortunately.
The DistroKid “Musician Plus” plan at $3.33/month ($39.99 annually at time of writing), is still a pretty fantastic deal, and a very affordable choice for just about anyone, amateur or pro, who wants to regularly release their music online across a wide variety of music streaming platforms.
Is there a sustainable future for artists within the DistroKid platform?
That remains to be seen, but this company is starting to show many of the hallmark signs of enshittification.
Here’s the DistroKid business development timeline, 2020-present:
DistroKid is a privately held company that has experienced an extremely rapid increase in off-market valuation. Spotify’s 2020 investment in Kid Distro Holdings, LLC was valued at approx. $18M in Jan 2020, increased in value to $33.7M in only 9 months, and then ended at a whopping $235.6M by the time Spotify sold their stake on Oct. 1, 2021. That’s an approx. $217M increase in valuation over less than two years. Whoa-it’s a hit! Now, this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem on its own, but:
In response to this large increase in valuation, DistroKid then chose to take investment from venture capital firm Insight Partners in August 2021. Massive red flag. If you’re a business that’s interested in staying a small, purpose-driven company working at the independent level, there would be no reason to take money from venture capital at all.
Feb 2023 (approx): DistroKid launches Mixea, their version of an AI mastering tool. Instead of connecting artists to high quality human production talent (the best way for artists to make the highest quality music), they’re currently attempting to undercut that talent with the development and marketing of cheap, automated AI music production tools.
Jan 2024: DistroKid’s original founder/CEO took a step back from day-to-day operations to become the president of the board.
October 2024: we see recent anti-union activity taking place inside of the DistroKid Artist Relations and Quality Control Departments, in favor of outsourcing those positions to save money. No non-unionized staff were affected (another big red flag).
Should you stick with DistroKid?
While this certainly isn’t financial or investment advice, here’s my opinion. In combination, all of these factors point to a privately held company possibly preparing to go public, and gradually losing sight of its core mission as it attempts to juice the revenue on its books, in advance of an IPO.
I don’t have a crystal ball, but especially given DistroKid’s acceptance of venture capital investment, I wouldn’t be too surprised if this company eventually tries to go public, and its original founders cash out.
At the very least, they’re currently clearly trying to juice their profit margins, at the expense of their original user base and their own employees.
Worst case scenario? Rising prices, an eroding of service quality, and for DistroKid to gradually become CDBaby, the very thing it succeeded in disrupting 20 years ago.
None of this may ever come to pass, but things are a bit concerning at the moment for this company in the short/mid term, at least when it comes to artist friendliness. Which is a shame, because they’ve been quite artist friendly for a very long time.
Other options
If the recent behavior of DistroKid is a dealbreaker for you, reputation-wise, you do have some other options. Nothing quite the same perhaps, but options nonetheless. We’ll go over those next time.
