[lucasmerlin]

It can be a huge difference. Say this month I only listen to a completely unknown artist. I am the only person listening (to make the calculation easy). I've listened to 10 of his songs and this is everything I've heard this month.

Now if my 7$ are distributed to all artists I've listened to this artist will now receive 7$. If my 7$ is thrown in a global pool and split by global stream counts this artist gets almost nothing.

Of course this is a extreme example but it should illustrate why this can matter.

[Denvercoder9]

> If my 7$ is thrown in a global pool and split by global stream counts this artist gets almost nothing.

Not by definition. If you generate more streams this month than the average user, your streams are a larger fraction of the stream counts than your 7$ is of the revenue pool, and this artist will get paid more than if he only got your 7$.

Splitting the revenue per-user instead of per-stream can certainly make a huge difference, but switching to per-user instead of per-stream benefits artists with listeners that generate a below-average amount of streams per month, regardless of their absolute stream numbers.