However, if it's only artists that appear to be mostly suffering from this new reality, while big (record/copyrights/tech) corporations still appear to be doing very well, I'm inclined to argue that this is probably more about unfair distribution (even more than it traditionally already was) than about the argument you put forward.
No matter how you slice that cake, if in the end artists have to struggle to get by while others make a killing from exploiting their creations, then there is something fundamentally wrong. Personally, I think that today it might even be more wrong than it has been for a long time.
Extract: " And that explains why huge megastars like Lyle Lovett have pointed out that he sold 4.6 million records and never made a dime from album sales. It's why the band 30 Seconds to Mars went platinum and sold 2 million records and never made a dime from album sales. You hear these stories quite often. "
Basically the money we pay is not going to the bands we listen to. It's being used to appease some larger pop artist so they won't leave the platform. Or to finance the platform itself.
This Lack of transparency from streaming services is a much bigger problem than the amount of money paid per stream.
Sure one can argue that Spotify is free to do whatever they want with the money, but it's still not a fair deal for small artists.
Just saying. There are a lot of jobs today that the market apparently no longer wants to pay for, even in the book world.