[fireflies_]

Sounds like this only works if people who listen to smaller bands/indie music listen to fewer songs on average. I'm not sure if this is true. People who find themselves exploring niche tastes are probably "enthusiasts" who do more listening and listen more broadly.

[mortenjorck]

It's all hypotheticals until there's some data.

You could just as easily have an enthusiast who finds a few new indie albums per month and listens to them all the way through, or someone who leaves a top-40 playlist on in the background.

[jonplackett]

From the article: 82 per cent of respondents earned less than £200 from streaming in 2019, including some with “millions” of streams.

This just could not happen with what I’m suggesting.

Example: The band above, which earned < £200 must have at least 2 million streams a year = 166,666 a month

For simplicity let’s assume each of those 166,666 streams is a unique user. Each also listens to 1999 other songs that month (about 5 hours a day of music seems average?)

So each owes the artist 1/2000 of their £10 subscription = $0.005

166,666 streamers * $0.005 = £833.33 a month = £10,000 a year.