Yeah that would work, but then the more you listen the less each artist gets per stream. Which is less fair to the artists, especially for subscribers who listen to a wide range of artists.
Yeah that would work, but then the more you listen the less each artist gets per stream. Which is less fair to the artists, especially for subscribers who listen to a wide range of artists.
Why is it less fair? The artist gets less revenue per stream, but it doesn’t cost the artist more per stream, and they are earning the revenue per user.
For example, let’s imagine a subscription service with just two users, paying $10 a month and each only listens to a single artist. The first user listens to their favorite album once a day, while the second user listens to their favorite album 9 times a day.
Would it be fair for the artist the first person listens to to only earn $2 while the other artist earns $18? Why should the money spent by the fan of Artist A be used to subsidize the support of artist B, even though they never listen to their stream?
This quirk of “divide by total streams” instead of “divide each users subscription by their particular stream” has lead to a type of fraud where someone will submit a song to Spotify, then create thousands of accounts that just listen to that song 24/7. Those 24/7 listening accounts have unfair say in who gets paid, so much so that you can make more than the subscription price just by having that user stream your songs.