You pay 10$ to listen to hundreds of songs a month, how can it possibly be profitable for artists?
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People generally misunderstand how streaming services work, and erroneously focus on the “per stream” rate, which is meaningless.
70% of all of spotify’s revenue goes to labels/artists. The amount each label/artist receives is based on how much time is spent playing their content each month.
Yes, it’s a low amount, but this is a function of spotify’s revenue model, especially because they have a lot of “free tier” users who generate far less than $10/month.
When artists complain that they don’t get enough money “per stream”, they’re ignoring the fact that they keep getting money as long as their music keeps getting played. Compared to a CD sale, or an iTunes download which pays out once and then never pays again. People can even sell used CDs and artists never receive another penny.
Perhaps artists should get more, but the only realistic way to make this happen is to increase the monthly price of the service. The reason why Tidal claims to be “better for artists” has nothing to do with them having a fairer model, they pay the same 70% that spotify does. Tidal is just a more expensive service.
Another argument is that artists/labels used to just make too much money, which they spent on cocaine. The largesse of the music industry of the 90s was pretty appalling. Artists now have to make more money from touring, and they have an incentive to make music which will stand the test of time, to get more streaming revenue in the long-term.
There’s a lot of difference forces at play, it’s complicated. It’s not inherently “bad”, but it can create bad incentives (as well as some good ones).
Deezer has been working to make the payout system fairer too: [https://www.deezer.com/us/ucps](https://www.deezer.com/us/ucps)
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