I pay Spotify $20. They take their cut (say, 50%) and there's $10 left for the artists. I've only listened to one small artist throughout the entire month. The artist does not get $10 but much less despite Spotify knowing precisely which artists I listened to.
I'm reminded of an effort a few years ago to legislate the creators getting 50% - which of course meant the "platforms" and the "labels" would collectively share only the other 50%. Which is presumably why the initiative failed.
> The three major labels - Sony, Universal and Warner Music - faced some of the toughest questioning of the inquiry, and were accused of a "lack of clarity" by MPs.
> They largely argued to maintain the status quo, saying any disruption could damage investment in new music, and resisted the idea that streaming was comparable to radio - where artists receive a 50/50 royalty split.
> "It is a narrow-margin business, so it wouldn't actually take that much to upset the so-called apple cart," said Apple Music's Elena Segal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-57838473
These days Spotify has hundreds of millions for Joe Rogan and podcast investments, and Apple reports a 75% profit margin on services, so I guess it is quite profitable for everyone except the actual artists.
So $5.20/mo per head and you get TV, games and storage with it.
Or Spotify Family Plan - 6 Premium accounts for family members under one roof. $11.49/month
So family plans seem to discount unlimited music streaming down to $2/mo per head.
$24/year or what a single CD used to cost, before even doubling it for inflation..
So it doesn’t matter if Spotify passes on 70%, most artists aren’t going to see any substantial portion of that, label or not.
This is a popular HN suggestion for disbursement but it makes the math super weird.
Spotify would never forgo current profits from flat monthly plans, but then why shouldn't artists be granted the same advantages in royalties proportional to a subscriber's ratio of playtime if the subscribers are charged a flat rate any how?
SoundCloud implements a "fan powered royalties" model, so that $10 in your example goes to those who artists who you stream
It isn’t fair that someone who listens to a ton of things has a much greater say in how the money is distributed even though they pay the same as someone who only listens to one artist.
For example, let’s imagine a subscription service with just two users, paying $10 a month and each only listens to a single artist. The first user listens to their favorite album once a day, while the second user listens to their favorite album 9 times a day.
Would it be fair for the artist the first person listens to to only earn $2 while the other artist earns $18? Why should the money spent by the fan of Artist A be used to subsidize the support of artist B, even though they never listen to their stream?
This quirk of “divide by total streams” instead of “divide each users subscription by their particular stream” has lead to a type of fraud where someone will submit a song to Spotify, then create thousands of accounts that just listen to that song 24/7. Those 24/7 listening accounts have unfair say in who gets paid, so much so that you can make more than the subscription price just by having that user stream your songs.
There is always this challenge for creating a business model around digital goods; there is a non-zero cost to create the good, but there is a near zero cost per unit of the good.
No one is going to want a pay per listen model. The heaviest users aren’t going to want to pay that much and will likely turn to piracy, and the lightest users don’t have that strong a desire to listen to music (as demonstrated by their light usage) to want to pay for each stream.
The advantage of a single price, all you can stream, model is that it generates revenue for artists AND it properly recognizes the fact that each stream has a near zero unit cost.
In my model, each listener generates a fixed revenue that is divided up amongst all the artists who create something that user listens to in the same proportion that they listen to it.
> We have clarified that you may only access the version of the Spotify service available where you live at the applicable price set for that version of the service.
> We have clarified how we bill you for subscriptions and how subscriptions may be canceled.
> We have provided more information about different ways in which content may be posted or shared on the platform.
> We have also provided more information about our content policies and practices, and our personalized recommendations.
> We have included links to important user policies and guidelines for your ease of reference.
> We are making some updates to the arbitration agreement.
Found some more discussion of pricing issues:
https://old.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/1n4x58f/spoti...
And this change was not called out in the email, but seems interesting to note:
https://musictechpolicy.com/2025/09/02/ai-implications-of-sp...
> We are updating the Terms of Service for YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium Lite subscriptions ('Terms'). These new Terms will be included in the YouTube Paid Service Terms of Service and will come into effect on September 26, 2025.
> We are making these changes to improve clarity and transparency regarding your subscription, including:
Clarifying our plan types.
Explaining our policies on promotional offers and accepted payment methods.
Clarifying that your subscription access should be predominantly from the country where you signed up.
Providing additional explanations and clarifications on our subscription policies.