They sign shitty contracts that leave them with "virtually nothing" and then complain to someone who is not responsible for them having "virtually nothing".
If a user pays $10/mo and listens to nothing but indie streams, those indies are getting far less than $7.50 (more like pennies) due to the way they calculate their payouts. The major labels pocket the majority of that money.
Spotify have the ability to change this, but not the will to do so, because the major labels own a stake in them. Soundcloud recently launched a payment model that matches pretty much exactly what indies are asking Spotify to do, so we know it's possible but Spotify have been stonewalling indies about how it's too complicated for years.
Best case scenario: indies will get enough pennies so they stop complaining, big labels will continue as today, Spotify will allocate some of its own money to music creation...
and the problem will remain unfixed at the roots.
remember who forced Spotify and others before it, to negotiate a deal at all cost with the Majors or be declared illegal?
On the plus side, services like Soundcloud and Deezer are adopting the payment scheme that is the solution to this, which opens a potentially more promising avenue through which to pursue the issue ("if they can do it, why can't you?").
I guess that's what you have to do when you're powerless. Record labels force you into shitty contracts. They have the power. Who has power over the record labels? Spotify.
What power does Spotify have over record labels?
[0] https://mashable.com/article/major-music-labels-19-million-p...
According to the statistics I have, Spotify has 34% market share while Apple Music has 21%, Amazon Music has 15% and others have 30%. That's hardly "no competitors".
They have the biggest share currently, but they're never safe.
Do you know any musicians? Like, real musicians, for whom music is their life and their life's work, not dabblers?
Typically these are not shrewd business types. They don't hold a lot of negotiating power; if they're lucky enough to get a chance with a label deal they often don't push back on the terms very much at all. Labels are notoriously predatory in this regard, particularly mainstream large companies.
All they want is a fair shake. They see themselves and their fellow artists being screwed continually, while people that have nothing to do with their hard work, long nights, and passionate effort make money off their backs. For every artist that learns, there are ten more willing to take their place just for a tiny sliver of a chance at popularity.
The solution here is to do whatever we want to continue the slow work towards destroying mainstream labels. Indie labels still offer a reasonable value proposition in terms of the promotion and recording work they do in exchange for a share of the proceeds; mainstream labels don't. Like most media industries, they're headed by parenthetical elites, cosmopolitan types who have no loyalty to anything but profit, and will squeeze out every drop no matter the impact to the actual working artists.
Fuck 'em. Don't listen to mainstream music. Support indie artists and labels; buy direct wherever possible. If anything, the protest should be to make it trivial to directly host your music with Spotify for a nominal hosting fee, so that all revenue can go direct to the artist, rather than having to go through a 3rd party service.