<story><title>80% of musicians earn less than £200 a year from streaming</title><url>https://www.nme.com/news/music/82-per-cent-of-musicians-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-2833510</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonplackett</author><text>The new system only works because smaller bands are subsidising the bigger ones.&lt;p&gt;For example. I only listen to smaller indie bands on Spotify for a month. I give Spotify my £10 for the month.&lt;p&gt;Does my £10 go to those smaller bands? No. It gets given to Lady Ga Ga because she got 100 bazzillion listens that month. Even though I never listen to her music.&lt;p&gt;Spotify should work out who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.&lt;p&gt;It would be fairer, but it would mean the bigger bands earn less, and expose the fact that streaming really isn’t making anyone enough money.&lt;p&gt;How could it when I’m now paying only £10 a month for what used to cost hundreds?&lt;p&gt;But it’s better than piracy!</text></item><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The fundamental problem isn&amp;#x27;t streaming, as much as it is that natural systems follow power law distributions. There will &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; be superstars that make the majority of the money, and tons and tons of wannabe artists that make almost nothing. That was just as true 20 years ago as it is today. If anything, streaming makes it possible to find those smaller artists and sample what they&amp;#x27;re making without having to go to some esoteric store and pay $20 for an album that you&amp;#x27;ve never heard before.&lt;p&gt;The system may be broken, but I&amp;#x27;m not sure going back to the old system is the right approach.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GuB-42</author><text>How often do you listen to Spotify?&lt;p&gt;If you listen to smaller indie bands more than the average person listens to Lady Ga Ga, the indies artist you listen to actually get more than £10 worth and Lady Ga Ga gets less.&lt;p&gt;Some people think it is less fair than a &amp;quot;one subscription one vote&amp;quot; system. It is up to debate, but the payment system does not favor celebrities, network effects combined with good marketing do.</text></comment>
<story><title>80% of musicians earn less than £200 a year from streaming</title><url>https://www.nme.com/news/music/82-per-cent-of-musicians-earn-less-than-200-a-year-from-streaming-2833510</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jonplackett</author><text>The new system only works because smaller bands are subsidising the bigger ones.&lt;p&gt;For example. I only listen to smaller indie bands on Spotify for a month. I give Spotify my £10 for the month.&lt;p&gt;Does my £10 go to those smaller bands? No. It gets given to Lady Ga Ga because she got 100 bazzillion listens that month. Even though I never listen to her music.&lt;p&gt;Spotify should work out who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.&lt;p&gt;It would be fairer, but it would mean the bigger bands earn less, and expose the fact that streaming really isn’t making anyone enough money.&lt;p&gt;How could it when I’m now paying only £10 a month for what used to cost hundreds?&lt;p&gt;But it’s better than piracy!</text></item><item><author>woeirua</author><text>The fundamental problem isn&amp;#x27;t streaming, as much as it is that natural systems follow power law distributions. There will &lt;i&gt;always&lt;/i&gt; be superstars that make the majority of the money, and tons and tons of wannabe artists that make almost nothing. That was just as true 20 years ago as it is today. If anything, streaming makes it possible to find those smaller artists and sample what they&amp;#x27;re making without having to go to some esoteric store and pay $20 for an album that you&amp;#x27;ve never heard before.&lt;p&gt;The system may be broken, but I&amp;#x27;m not sure going back to the old system is the right approach.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kazinator</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Spotify should work put who you’re listening to and give them a direct slice of what you have paid, rather than putting everyone in a pot together and dividing by number of plays.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Representation based on number of plays&lt;p&gt;Problem is, suppose you listen to almost nothing but some indie band all month, and you happen to land on Lady Ga Ga just once or twice by accident somehow. Now since proportional representation by number of raw plays has been replaced by number of deduplicated plays tabulated to the artist, £5 goes to Gaga.&lt;p&gt;Squashing repetitions probably won&amp;#x27;t make much difference, because some people who like unpopular music listen to it repeatedly like crazy, just like people who like popular music. The big stars are not winning due to more plays; it&amp;#x27;s really due to just being more popular.&lt;p&gt;Suppose every Spotify subscriber streams music 24 hours a day. Then is it still unfair to go by plays?&lt;p&gt;By the way, no mater what, I suspect out of any £10 subscription, something like £9.95 goes to Spotify itself.</text></comment>