That doesn't take into account the spotify cut. What would you propose? Right now spotify pays a certain amount per song played, and covers this cost by charging $10 of whatever, and hoping the average user doesn't listen to more than song_cost*songs_listened. In your scenario, suddenly spotify's business risk has been transferred over to the artists themselves - if your songs get listened to by people who listen to a lot of music, you're going to get paid less per listen.
>if your songs get listened to by people who listen to a lot of music, you're going to get paid less per listen.
That still would be fairer than the current system and that edge case would be rare.
As it stands today, we're all heavily subsidising the most popular (and well marketed) bands -not just their fans- leaving crumbs for other artists who end up having very little chance to see their lot improve at all.
I'm paying Spotify to listen to the artists I like, hoping to support them so they can make more music I like.
Instead, nearly everything I pay ends up in the pockets of artist I have no affinity for.
