[yunohn]

> Spotify adopted an economic model marginally different from piracy but with the veneer of a legitimate economic transaction, the pretense of some kind of proper accounting.

How does your critique of Spotify not apply to Apple? They lack a free/ads tier, and claim to pay a bit more to artists. Does this fundamentally change the fact that they’re still /streaming/?

[wwweston]

/Streaming/ itself isn't the problem. The problem is the /payouts/. Retail revenues were replaced with fractional revenues more suitable for broadcast. That makes life economically more difficult for musicians.

So my critique could apply to Apple in approximately the ratio between their payouts and Spotify's (averaging around $.01 to $.004).

I would also point out that Apple's scheme starts to get into territory that looks reasonable-ish as a replacement for recording retail. Ask yourself how many plays you're likely to get out of a single you buy. If my recall of my iTunes history is any indication, it probably averages out to around 50. $1.00 a track, 70% to artist, that's right around a penny per play.

Of course, there's a short peak (opposite of long tail) of more individually popular tracks that people will play hundreds of times. Those the economics probably works out down in the tenth-of-a-penny range. But even then, retail incentives were better -- front-loading payouts creates a situation where new-music-creation is incentivized more heavily, leading you to be more likely to have more from your favorite artists if there's more to make.