You and I jointly get $10/month, to be split according to our stream counts. We each get 100 views/month, so we both take home $5/month. Now, I start lying, and saying that I am actually receiving 900 views/month. With 90% of the views, I take home $9/month, leaving only $1/month to you. I have fraudulently stolen $4/month from you.
Thanks, this makes sense if royalty payments are a revenue share based on stream share, and not a per-stream fee.
If you and your buddies own the service, and you order the nerds over in Norway/Northpole to inflate the play counts of you and your buddies's music so that you don't have to pay other randos so much money: all of the other artists.