[listenallyall]

What's unfair about it?

[FireBeyond]

Spotify keeps approximately 30% of subscription and ad revenues.

The remaining approximately 70% goes into one big pool.

That pool is distributed based on share of total streams.

So if there are 1 trillion streams total and an artist gets 1 billion of them, they get 0.1% of the entire payout pool.

You are not paid by your listeners — you are paid in proportion to everyone else’s listening.

So if you pay $10/month and listens only to niche artists:

- your money still goes into the global pool

- it is mostly paid out to Drake, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, etc.

- even if you never listen to them

[listenallyall]

But your streams are counted (just like everyone else's) in determining the total percentage of streams for which each artist was responsible. Those niche artists you like get a boost when you listen. What you described sounds absolutely fair and democratic.