On Spotify, the top 0.4% of artists are responsible for 9.9% of streams.
If spotify itself was seen as a market - I wouldn't say that this would be a very well-functioning market, because of the mismatch between what you use and who you pay.
In my mind, decisions like giving Joe Rogan 100 million dollars are more likely culprits.
Edit: That's the first I hear of that deal, and that's insane. Not a podcast I listen to, and I don't want to use any of the user-tracking, user-inlocking podcast players.
> Spotify’s Premium subscriptions, which still account for the majority (~90%) of its revenues, grew by 17% to reach €1.76 billion in the quarter https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/29/spotify-users-are-streamin...
Bob streams track 11,12,13,14 1,000 times a month each for their €10
Jamie streams track 21,22,23,24 100 times each for their €10
Total revenue €20, Total streams 4,400. .45c per stream.
Track 11 gets €4.50, track 21 gets €0.45
Alice pays $10/month fee. Alice only listens to track A 990 times. Bob pays $10/month fee. Bob only listens to track B 10 times.
Total revenue $20, Total streams 1000. $0.02 per stream. Track A gets $19.80, track B gets $0.20
If Bob got his twin brother to subscribe, and they had the exact same listening pattern next month:
Alice pays $10/month fee. Alice only listens to track A 980 times. (Alice listens to the song less this month than last month)
The Bobs are now paying $20/month. The Bobs only listen to track B 20 times total (Each Bob listens to the track 10 times).
Total revenue $30, Total streams still 1000. $0.03 per stream. Track A gets $29.40. Track B gets $0.60.
Track A just increased its revenue 48% despite being listened to less the second month. Track B was responsible for Spotify earning $10 more, but only saw $0.40 of what it brought into Spotify.
However, I'm not sure what the downstream ramifications of the new incentives would be after hypothetically switching from pro-rata payment structure to a per-user structure. Would artists' / music labels' strategies change?
I also wonder what would happen to the revenue from users who pay subscriptions for a month, but neglect to use the service at all. It seems it would make sense to either pay the artists that user has listened to over their lifetime/past year, or distribute pro-rata across all of Spotify.