Gregory's Server
I was looking at the Spotify 2022 10-K-equivalent via https://investors.spotify.com/financials/default.aspx#annual
11.727 billion euros revenue (most of that from monthly subscriptions, a bit from ad-supported), divided by 132 billion hours is 0.16 US cents per minute
I see people saying that "US$0.003 per stream max goes to the artist". It has to be a lot less than this since 75% of that revenue is used to produce that revenue, but even if they paid every penny they made to artists, it'd have to be ~0.3 cents per song
Because streaming is just very unprofitable for producers, both in music and TV/film. There's really no way to make a fixed monthly fee cover the value of the production (https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-07-21/column-hollywood-sag-aftra-strike-strike-silicon-valleys-magical-thinking is a great intro to how Netflix and streaming has been a hugely money-losing operation for studios, the same thing applies to music)
To support artists, you must stop thinking about your monthly subscription to Spotify or any streamer as "payment" to the artist. Maybe think of it as a membership to a newsletter that tells you about new music? Then you have to go find that artist's actual store and buy their vinyls, merch, concert tickets, digital downloads, etc., to support them
Tldr: streaming will never be profitable for producers
I didn't read the Spotify filing very closely but I was a bit surprised that when discussing their sources of revenue, they didn't mention anything about "advertising" in the form of, fees they take from labels/musicians to promote their work. I thought for sure they'd be taking some money from Universal or whatever to recommend the new Drake album or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be discussed in their US government filings?
It'd be so easy to accept some money and make a song/artist 1% more likely to show up in people's "randomized" playlists or in their "Recommended for you" or whatever. Is this really not a thing they do?
I didn't read the Spotify filing very closely but I was a bit surprised that when discussing their sources of revenue, they didn't mention anything about "advertising" in the form of, fees they take from labels/musicians to promote their work. I thought for sure they'd be taking some money from Universal or whatever to recommend the new Drake album or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be discussed in their US government filings?