[Flimm]

> They don't pay per play, so most of your money goes to popular artists no matter how indie your listening habits are.

That's a misleading sentence, it implies that your listening choices do not affect how much money goes to indie artists, which is not true. The proportion that each artist gets depends on how many plays they have relative to the plays of all artists in total in a particular time period, which is a proportion you do influence by what you choose to play.

If you want to be misleading in the other direction, you could just as easily say:

"They don't pay per play, so some of your money goes to Satanist artists no matter how mainstream your listening habits are."

[aston]

I may be appealing to emotion there, but it's certainly not misleading (nor is your claim about Satanists, though I think the proportion going to them is very very small). It's true!

Do you disagree that it would be better for the $10/mo a subscriber pays to go only to the artists they listen to?

[qq66]

"Your" $10 does only go to the artists you listen to. If you shift your listening entirely from one artist to another, the artist you left will see their revenue drop by $7 and the artist you adopt will see their revenue increase by $7.

[wmf]

If Spotify subscribers listen to more or less the same number of songs per month then their money does go to the artists they listen to. Your money only goes to artists you don't like if you listen to fewer songs than average.

[earbitscom]

Not only would that be better, but it would be better if it was usage based billing. Why does someone who listens to 10 hours a month pay the same rate as someone who listens to 140 hours?

Great analysis, btw.