[dmbass]

Let me give an example:

Say I pay $10/month and only listen to 2 artists, each with .001% market share. IMO, each one should get $3.50 from my pool of subscription money. Using their current scheme, each would get $0.00007 while Lady GaGa would get $0.30 when I didn't even listen to Poker Face.

[ZoF]

I see your point, but I think your reasoning is flawed. If each one got 3.50$ from you then they would get nothing from the other subscribers, whereas, as it currently is they receive .00007 from everyone... Even if Spotify followed your subscription model the end result would be the same small amount of money.

Your method would only increase complexity for Spotify and serve no real purpose in terms of getting your favorite artists more money.

[d2vid]

If tweens listen to 10 hrs/day of Justin Bieber on repeat using free accounts, Bieber shouldn't get money from adults who listen a few hours a day to anything but him using premium accounts.

I think it's quite reasonable to assume that differences in listening and paying habits between users would NOT average out, and a per user split would be fairer.

[e12e]

I agree that a per person split would be might be better (for how I think royalties should be distributed) -- but one would also take into account the ad revenue those tweens (and other "free" users) generate.

I don't know how Spotify is doing financially, but hopefully they make money off free users as well as paid users (but I'd not be surprised if they end up a bit like Opera did -- making money from paid users and licensing/bundling deals -- and just using the commercial breaks/ads as stick to guide users towards the paid service).

Either way I'd much prefer being able to pay for lossless records that I get to keep -- I gave up on Spotify quite early as it ended up a little like youtube -- come back to a playlist after a few months and half the songs were gone. I know they're better now, but that experience just underlined the idea that paying for licensing content in a way that leaves you vulnerable to that content disappearing is a very bad deal for me as a listener/consumer.

[maccard]

Its interesting that you mention their ad breaks. For 6 months, I had no idea that spotify operated a premium service whatsoever, until they imposed the 2.5hr limit per week on my account and hit me with more ads. I subscribed immediately.

[bitJericho]

I think by broadening the pool they are effectively bringing more music to Spotify. This is good even if it's of the Bieber variety because then users like me can discover artists I wouldn't normally listen to or discover new CDs from artists that used to be in fashion and are no longer.

[Already__Taken]

in 5 years of such use by said tweens how many more users might be brought into the system. How many tweens parents a there accounts made for.

Things are not so simple.

[shalmanese]

Imagine you have 10 people who listen to artist A once every month and one person who listens to artist B 90 times.

Under the current spotify system, artist B would get 90% of the revenue and artist A would get 10%. Under the parent's proposal, artist A would get 89% of the revenue and artist B would get 11%.

In any case, I'm willing to bet that the parent's proposal would actually backfire. I would wager that people who listen to obscure music also listen to more music so they're actually receiving more under the original spotify proposal.

[dmbass]

Hmmm... I'll have to make a graph of that and see how it pans out.

[mathrawka]

If you are paying for 2 indie artists, why not just support them directly by buying music directly from them?

[cdcarter]

Or support them in ways that actually net them any reasonable amount of money, buying merch or tickets.

[dllthomas]

Or, y'know, direct contributions.

[newsum]

he/she didn't exactly mean "2 indie artists"...just listening to bands who had an extremely low percentage of streams on Spotify.

[mathrawka]

s/indie//

Does that change the argument any?

[newsum]

Yes, because buying merch and donations are one-time deals. No one is buying the same shirt from their favorite band every month but they are sure listening to their music every month. And if the the lionshare of my own subscription is going to Lady Gaga just because she released a new album...well that makes no sense in any business.

[samolang]

Yes. But the millions of people who don't listen to those two artists are also paying them $0.00007. If you assume everyone listens to the same amount of music, then the two system are equivalent. If you listen to more music than the average person, then your 2 artists get paid more using the current system. If you listen to less music than the average person, then your 2 artists get paid less using the current system.

[jchrisa]

I agree 100%. If I knew there was a music service that would target my dollars more directly I'd be much happier to subscribe.

[e12e]

Well, I suppose you could buy music via bandcamp? (I realize this might not count as a music [implied streaming] service, though.

In a similar vein, there's also Magnatune and Jamendo.

[jamesbritt]

Bandcamp has an app for streaming music you've purchased

http://blog.bandcamp.com/2013/10/25/its-over/

[vacri]

As long as you use spotify to at least the amount of an average spotify user, your two artists will get the equivalent amount of money, since all of the other spotify listeners will be paying that sliver for your artists.