Exactly. People complain how little it pays but forget that they're just a drop in the stream of how much people are listening to.

The best case to expect is an average Spotify user listens to about 500 songs a month (25 hours) and has an ARPU of about $5 (https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/31/spotify-108-million/). There cannot possibly be more than $0.01 (1c) per play available to pay the artists. Spotify paying out 37% of that actually looks pretty good.

That's as high as the users will go, it seems; the equilibrium point against piracy or other music services.