The Spotify model doesn't really work for music though, unless you're a mega star who probably doesn't need the money. While something is better than nothing, but I don't think Spotify pays the bills for most artists, especially when the pot is not evenly distributed.
Who are we talking about here? More total money is spent on music now due to spotify. And the money has never been that widely distributed. What small artists did better before Spotify?
It’s not viable for journalism bc music artists have other avenues of revenue like touring and merch.
The point is that even Taylor Swift doesn’t make very much money from Spotify. What other sources of revenue does journalism have? It’s not like the NYT is going to make a few million going on tour.
Spotify has a lot of revenues with millions of users at $10 - $20 per month. Perhaps they give very little to artists but I’m not sure it is necessary to operate. If artists had no other ways to make money, I suspect they would pay more as otherwise the system wouldn’t work.
It's not the Spotify model that is responsible for this, but the scammy way which record companies have approached the Spotify model.
They offer artists a similar 'royalty' on Spotify revenue as they did on record sales. In other words, where they used to give artists 10-20% of a CD sticker price, with much of the rest going to retailer markup, manufacturing costs, etc. they now keep 80-90% of the Spotify money, when they have zero per-unit costs and are simply passing the money through to the artist.
Artists who are working with Spotify outside of this system are able to make money from streaming, just as YouTubers who own their own content are able to make money while musicians typically see tiny amounts from YT.
However, the record company are essentially a bank who fund firstly recording and development costs, and second (both important and very expensive) marketing costs. So to be able to license directly with Spotify you have to already have a bunch of funds.
