In regard to artist's remuneration. The most popular artists do just fine between streaming royalties and concert dates. The obscure and/or unknown artists likely do better with streaming vs. hard copy. For one they get far more exposure via streaming vs. cd/vinyl, Vast majority of these artists won't get promoted by a record company and it requires resources to produce hard copy. Nope, these types of artists have been advantaged by streaming,
Really? Sounds like rationalizing to me.
More popular platforms, however, aren't as competitive. Spotify pays artists around $0.004 per stream, and Apple Music pays $0.007 per stream — meaning artists would have to receive 4,000 streams per hour on Spotify or 2,286 streams on Apple Music to make the $16 minimum wage in California.
Here's a way to deal with proper compensation for artists but some will complain about having to pay more for the service by raising each stream to a whole penny! Don't forget that Sean Parker started it all with Napster as a way to steal royalties from musicians and is celebrated as a hero for doing so.
We've become so accustomed to this model that it's accepted as normal, which would explain a lot of things. Whenever I browse and come across something I like, I buy a CD, which the artists really appreciate.
All the best,
Nonoise