[jeremymims]

When I was in high school (quite a long time ago now), I'd try to buy 2-4 albums a month. That was an average cost of $25-$50 to listen to 20-50 new songs... some of which I enjoyed, some of which I didn't.

$10 per month to listen to almost anything is such an astounding underpricing of the value I personally derive from the service. I can hardly believe my good fortune to be alive at a time when I can pay so little to listen to so much with so little effort.

[bsder]

And this is exactly why the music industry is failing.

Even if every American paid $100 per year, that maxes the revenue at $30 billion with no further growth possible.

Now how much of that it going back to the music creators? Almost zero.

If I take your high school numbers and extrapolate ($250/year across 300 million) with a $.50 per CD (20 albums per year) we get a $75 billion business with $3 billion actually going back to artists. For 20,000 CD's (roughly the number of releases last year) that's 150,000 per year back to the CD creators.

That's an ENORMOUS difference.

Yes, these are all bounds (not everybody would buy--there were fewer CD's in the past--CD's were more expensive to produce), but you can see the difference.

Now, this isn't all Spotify's fault, but the middlemen are taking WAY too much out of the pie.

In addition, there are so many entertainment options that music has to compete with that it will never get back the privileged position it had in the late 60's to early 80's before both VHS and videogames.

[fat0wl]

this is my whole point I've been ranting about -- Spotify absolves peoples' guilt but they are just feeding the middleman, who seems to be taking the WHOLE pie.

i think pure torrents + physical sales would actually result in better money for artists than the same situation + Spotify.