[mytherin]

The system is not set up for this. You cannot play copyrighted music in a stream or YouTube video without jumping through hundreds of hoops with licensing. Especially if you are listening to a variety of songs (e.g. Spotify or a radio) this is a nightmare.

You are right that many (not all) YouTubers and streamers are businesses, but pinning this on streamers for being cheap/greedy and not wanting to pay ignores the reality of the situation. If this was in any way realistic you would see a certain percentage of streamers pay and legally play popular music. Instead, that percentage is zero.

There is no reasonable path to pay for playing popular music, and that is entirely the fault of the record companies.