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Comment by yzh | Hacker News Reader

Actually I have a question regarding spotify's payment model: I heard that every subscriber's payment are put in a big pool, and artists are paid according to their global click/listening rank. If this were true, then when I pay 10 dollar's per month and all I listen to is Carsick Cars (my favorite Chinese indie band), still the majority of 10 dollars will go to Justin Bieber and Adele. Is that right? Another model is to pay the artist according to each subscriber's stats. For example in my previous example, all my payment (except those for Spotify) will go to Carsick Cars. Additionally, I'm wondering which of the above payment model is fair to both the audience and the artists?

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If all you listen to is Carsick Cars then their global ranking will be boosted and assuming that you listen an average amount all your royalty money will go to Carsick Cars. If you listen a greater than average amount then even more money will go to them.

There's a minimum payout, so unless you listen to your neighborhood band a lot then they still get nothing and all of your $10 goes to bands you never even listened to.

The Spotify model even encourages people to not listen to music. Putting your music library on shuffle and turning off the speakers is the best way for a paying subscriber to get money to the bands they like. Streaming an excessive amount on mute also takes money from other bands that you don't like and redirects it to your favorites. Even better, sign up for an ad-supported account, play your favorites on mute, and the artists will get even more money per play.

It's a terrible model that rewards people for abusing it. Splitting your $10 among your bands is a much better model, but they won't do it because ads don't pay enough so they mix together ads and paid accounts so they can get more listeners. Spotify model is good for Spotify, but not for anybody else.

If this sentence is true:

> when I pay 10 dollar's per month and all I listen to is Carsick Cars (my favorite Chinese indie band), still the majority of 10 dollars will go to Justin Bieber and Adele

... then it's also true that millions of subscribers are paying a tiny fraction of their subscription fee to Carsick Cars, even though they never listen to their music.

Mathematically, it's equivalent (I think) to you paying your entire subscription fee to Carsick Cars, and nobody else paying them anything. But the wording of one sounds fairer for some reason.

(It gets more complicated once you consider that some users are putting less money because they're on the ad-supported subscription.)

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