[phi-go]

But they do not get payed the same. Let's say Spotify has two users that total 100 listens, 99 Taylor listens and one listen for the obscur artist.

If payed by total listens Taylor gets 99%.

Now if those 99 listens are from the one user and the other from the other user. Paying by listens ratio per user, Taylor will get 50%.

[Gigachad]

That only matters if as a whole Taylor swift listeners listen to Spotify for longer than obscure artist listeners. Which hasn’t been shown.

Over the entire population of Spotify listeners you are going to have high and low listen count users that average out.

[phi-go]

No, it was shown this doesn't average out, there is a study linked upthread.