This is just my limited understanding of the rather inconsistent marketing copy. There is also a section about using a blockchain for DJs which I will not even try to comprehend on a weekend.
They also state "Obviously we have no way of knowing exactly how this will actually break down", which does not instill much confidence in their tiered payment system.
So the cost of exploring new tracks is almost zero, and for the ones you like you end up paying $1 to buy. To me that seems pretty cheap - you can add 10 new songs per month to your permanent collection for the same price as Spotify, with nearly unlimited trials of new songs.
To me this specific implementation seems to be not great (they talk about blockchain, no big artists on it yet, etc.), but the model seems very fair to me, and as a consumer I would prefer a model like this where the people I listen to actually get a nontrivial amount of money.
This actually seems a lot more likely to be sustainable than the current model, which just grinds all but a few dozen artist's bones to dust until they quit music and get real jobs.
If this results in musicians being able to make a living, I love it. If not, at least it's trying. Pandora paying out $2700 for 40 million plays is bullshit. I don't mind paying for something that affects my life as positively as music does. I hope this works or leads to something that works.