It was worth reading, I am definitely not like the "average" impressionistic streamer the article is pointing toward, as I sit here and stream to Genesis- A trick of the Tail in its entirety in the background. I think 99% here on AG are the same.
Two contrasting takeaways I noticed:
"The United Musicians and Allied Workers, a music-industry trade union, was formed in 2020 in part to lobby on behalf of those most affected by the large-scale changes of the past decade. Four years later, Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act, which would create a fund to pay artists a minimum of a penny per stream. With a royalty rate at around half a cent—slightly more than Spotify pays—it would take more than four hundred and eighty thousand streams per month to make the equivalent of a fifteen-dollar-an-hour job. But the bill hasn’t made any legislative playlists."
And:
"Meanwhile, during a twelve-month stretch from 2023 to 2024, Spotify announced new revenue highs, with estimates that the company is worth more than Universal and Warner combined. During the same period, its C.E.O., Daniel Ek, cashed out three hundred and forty million dollars in stock; his net worth, which fluctuates but is well into the billions, is thought to make him richer than any musician in history. "
