Maybe you don't remember how bad it was. They weren't giving $500k of $1000k, they were giving $500k of $100k, ending in massive debt that could only be resolved by making more music for the same label (they wouldn't collect it as long as the revenue was still coming in), sometimes eventually breaking even but usually ending up in some kind of bankruptcy. Of course the record label would charge you another $500k for your next song that would make $100k of repayment on the first debt. I'm probably exaggerating the 5:1 difference but it was really really bad, and you'd have to pay the massive fixed fee even if nobody ended up liking your song, which isn't how Spotify works.