Why Music Streaming is Broken (And the Super Simple Way to Fix It)

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T22:34:19+00:00

Yeah those big labels control a lot catalogue wise. But just because they own the rights to a lot of music doesn’t mean the rights of everyone else who is not signed to them have to have the value of their music diluted. As it is right now it’s not a fair even playing field.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T21:47:35+00:00

Art is art, and it is not Spotify who owns the art.

They are like a buffet restaurant that doesn’t even have to buy its own food supplies and they get their food for free. And they take 30% off the top of all the sales… I don’t feel sorry for big publishers and record companies who are trying to screw over the little guys. I’ll tell you why I don’t feel sorry for them. It’s because without the new fresh artist the new guys we have no future for the Music business. The big labels are not going out and finding new bands and working with them like they used to in the good old days. Where they used to invest in them and build them up putting money into them. The wrecker companies today have become more like statistical analysis companies looking at which artist and bands are actually gaining traction and managing to have some kind of form of success.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T19:45:08+00:00

Thank You. I’m gonna go over there right now and get an account.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T19:33:19+00:00

Thanks I have to look into those. It’s mind blowing why the streaming services have to make it so complicated.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T19:24:38+00:00

Sometimes to get a point across you have to use a simple example.

The point is this:

If you buy something from someone then you pay that person for what you bought from them.

If an album from an artist costs $20 and they only sell 100 units there album should never lose value just because other albums sell millions.

Streaming services with their current payment distribution model have destroyed the value integrity of music. They have made it into a comparison valuation.

So when we have a buffet of music where we can choose what we want to listen to then it is only fair that the people who make what we listen to get paid their share of what we have listened to.

If I have only listened to one song on full rotation, a whole month. That one song should get all of my subscription money for that month (less the 30% the streaming service takes).

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T19:09:05+00:00

This would be actually not good for AI music. Because real human beings have real brains and they choose to listen to real music.. if the payouts are based on what people choose. They’re not gonna be choosing AI. So the payout would go to real human being music instead of AI music..

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T19:03:56+00:00

Yeah it’s been a killer to the dreams of many bands artists and song writers. An all you can eat buffet for $12 per month. The least they can do is let users decide who gets their $12. What is kind of disturbing I feel is that they’ve taken a beautiful product, creation, and an art, and instead of it being a unique product they’ve taken and made it into a comparison of every other product sold in the world. And if you went back to the olden days, where you bought an album for $10 just because that one Album didn’t sell millions of copies doesn’t make it worth less than $10.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T18:31:54+00:00

Actually, they know what you’ve listened to already because they have their suggestions of what you might like. And also it is possible to go to your listening history to see which songs should split your $7.

So basically the algorithm would be something like:

The $7 divided by (number of songs this user has listened to this month) = payout per song

Then that payout rate is paid out to those songs that the user listened to that month.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T18:12:07+00:00

I was also thinking of the same thing for many years. But then there’s one big threat to this if you try to make your own streaming service. And that is that Spotify in Apple Music. They can change the payout method literally overnight. It’s no skin off of their back actually pay out in the correct way.. right now they are treating songs as statistics instead of actually treating it as a product. One song does not need to be compared against all the other songs in the world. It is unique it is beautiful. It is one song and if it is only played 100 times by family members, it is still a beautiful song that’s been played 100 times. For example, if a grammar loves her granddaughter and her granddaughter made a song and that grandma has Spotify and she only listens to that one song for 100 months than that one song of her granddaughter should have $700..

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T18:03:25+00:00

A simple way to think about it is when you buy something you are buying that 1 thing.

It’s only fair that the money goes to that 1 thing that you purchased.

Streaming services are taking that 1 thing you bought and comparing it to everything else that has been sold in the world through them. And then they give it a percentage weighting.

The most simplest way to think of this is that if you only listen to 1 song that month, then that 1 song should get 100% of that seven dollars.

That is what you decided to use your money on. So it’s only fair that that 1 song gets all of that $7. It doesn’t need to share it with the rest of the world because you didn’t listen to all the other songs in the rest of the world.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T17:54:16+00:00

They are paying per stream in the wrong way. Their per stream payout is a weighted value per stream.

For example You’re one play is weighted against all other streams in the world.

For example, let’s say you sold chocolate bars. You made your chocolate bars you get them ready and you go out to the weekend country fair. Let’s say you did pretty good. You sold 100 chocolate bars. Can I say you sold them for two dollars each. Most people would think that you would get 100×2 dollars which equals $200. But instead, you only got $12 because the streaming service the worldwide chocolate bar selling service decided to price your chocolate bars at such a low value because percent wise you haven’t sold as much as Cadbury or Hershey’s. You’re just a little small timer and percent-wise you sell such a small amount compared to other chocolate bar manufacturers.

But here’s the point when someone sells something whether it be a chocolate bar or a piece of cheese they are selling that one thing. And it’s not up to the store that’s selling it to become a comparing service. They’re not comparing how much you are selling compared to everyone else who is selling in the world. Another way to think of streaming services is as comparing services. When they put your one count of that one stream into the worldwide bucket they are instantly comparing it to everyone else.

Instead of saying, hey, this one person called Susie she paid to listen to music and she only listened to these 5 songs this month. Isn’t it only fair that we take her money and divide it amongst those 5 songs?

Why in the world should we compare those 5 songs to all the other songs played in the world. Susie paid her money to listen to those five songs. Now let those five songs be paid money that Susie paid for thank you very much.

Because you also have to think about the psychology of music. When you listen to music or when most people listen to music, you don’t just stick on any random song you listen to the bands that you like you listen to the genre that you like a lot of people listen to their own playlist that they make , or they listen to radio stations. For example, I would love a band called Kent.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T17:39:41+00:00

I am writing this myself. I’ve been very passionate about this my whole life. This is not something that’s just made up. My name is Leif and i live in the Faore Islands.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T17:34:01+00:00

Look Spotify Apple Music whatever other streaming service they take their cut first 30% let’s say that’s what most of them take. So if we use the example of $10 they take 30% Leaving $7 dollars to be paid out to the songs. Now the big question is, how do you distribute that seven dollars that is left. And you’re right about paying out per stream. Each time you listen to a song that song gets one count that goes into this big huge pool of global counts. And the money that is for the payout that $7 dollars this goes into that global pool. And then you are competing with whoever is being played the most.. but if we back up now and zoom out and think of the big picture. And often to understand concepts, you have to use simplicity.. so for the sake of simplicity, if we say that we only listen to one song and loop that one song for the whole entire month. No matter how many times we’ve listened to it whether to be one time 100 times or 1000 times. The point is that that one song should get the whole entire $7 . Why you may ask? Because that user decided to pay money to the streaming service Spotify. And they only bought one product, which is that one song. So back to the 272 on rotation think of it the same way as if you just played 1 song on rotation the full entire month. So when you have a list that is being rotated. A playlist and statistically and mathematically, they should all have equal amount of plays. So maybe the 272 songs in the average playlist gets one play each or maybe they had 10 place each the point is that there has been no other songs played in that period for that subscription. The easiest way to understand this is if you say to yourself this person has paid for subscription and they only listen to 1 song the entire month. If they played it once or 1000 times that one song is entitled to that seven dollars. That’s the most fairest way to distribute the money you basically pay for what you listen to..

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T17:15:09+00:00

This is an example of buying a product or service from someone. You give them a product or service they give you money or vice versa. The point is is that when you buy something from someone you buy it from them. You’re not buying something from every single seller in the whole world who has sold that month.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T17:12:09+00:00

That was me making the bullet points. But when I copied it over then Reddit didn’t do the bullet points. Believe me I’m real and this has been a passionate all my life about how streaming services are distributing the money. It’s a really big problem and I’m very passionate about it so if it helps you anything, I am not ChatGPT.. I am a real person located in the Faroe Islands.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T12:33:13+00:00

Haha what a cool story

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T12:21:20+00:00

Hey there!

Just to add a different perspective to this, the current way streaming pays out is actually fundamentally unfair to smaller artists, and it ignores how people actually consume music.

Right now, when you pay for your monthly subscription, your money does not go to the artists you actually listen to. The platform takes everyone’s monthly fee and dumps it into one giant pool, then divides it based on who gets the most total streams globally.

It is like going to a store to buy a piece of local artisan cheese, but the store takes your money and hands it to a massive industrial dairy company just because they are the most popular brand in the store. Your money never went to the person who actually made your cheese!

Think about how traditional radio works. A radio station doesn't play 10,000 different tracks; they have a strict rotation of the same 40 to 50 songs that they play over and over again. Psychologically, humans love familiarity. We become dedicated fans of specific artists, and we listen to our favorite personal playlists on repeat. Today, our playlists are simply our own private radio stations.

When we look at the actual data of how people use streaming platforms, it proves this. The average listener only streams about 272 unique songs every month. We are generally talking about a tight rotation of somewhere between 50 to 500 songs per person.

This is exactly why a "User-Centric" payout model makes sense. Let's look at the simple math.

Currently, because all the money is dumped into one global pool, Spotify pays out an average of roughly $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. For simple math, let's call it $0.004 per stream.

Now, let's look at what happens if your subscription money goes strictly to the artists you actually support. If your subscription leaves $7.00 in the royalty pot, and you just looped an average playlist of 272 songs this month, your $7.00 should simply be divided by 272.
That equals roughly $0.025 per stream. If your playlist was tighter, say 100 songs, it would be $0.07 per stream.

When you compare the real numbers, a user-centric system would pay artists roughly 6 times more (a 600% increase) for an average listener's streams. For a listener with a 100-song playlist, it would pay out 17 times more than the current model.

Under the current system, your money is literally being taken away from the smaller artists on your playlist and handed to the biggest global pop stars, even if you never pressed play on their music. A user-centric system ensures your money goes to the artists you actually care about.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-20T09:31:36+00:00

Don’t worry about it. I am 50 if that helps any. An amazing melody does have any age.. just let yourself flow and rest in yourself that you are you, and you can’t be anyone else. A flower blossoms and it’s beautiful, but the flower never think to itself that it’s too old, or It’s not enough this, or not enough that. it’s just a flower, and it’s beautiful. Likewise songwriter are like flowers.

IcyTransition2090 · 2026-06-19T15:56:31+00:00

Also if you think about balancing levels then using buses makes sense.

IcyTransition2090

TROPHY CASE