How does that work for a streaming service that charges a flat rate? Do you think public has an appetite for a pay per usage model/micro transaction model or would it drive users back to piracy? Micro transactions in online news media hasn’t managed to get any traction.
It doesn't work for a streaming service which charges a flat rate - which is the point.
Spotify is not the same as Netflix etc, because Netflix etc is commissioning and promoting new work - something Spotify has no interest in.
So... you sell units, not streams. You buy a perpetual license to play a unit as many times as you want. The artist gets a royalty for the unit sale. This frontloads income around unit release, which encourages new creation, but units generate a perpetual royalty stream as part of the artist's back catalog, so artists are less likely to starve.
Preview streams are available for free as tasters. Or perhaps a full taster can be played X times before it has to be bought.
The player is tied to an app, but most music is now consumed on phones or in a web player, so DRM is irrelevant and there is no real loss of convenience.
This model worked (more or less) for decades.
The point is popular creators should be paid for full-time work. That's how you get the best work from artists.
And it's not as if the economy can't support this. Operating in any other way is entirely down to politics, not economics.
iTunes offers purchasable music. And it could be argued a better deal for consumers who only listen to 100 songs or less a year. Market doesn’t want it. It is inconvenient to force people to go through a checkout flow for every song they want to listen to.
People always forget that storage and distribution of music is a relatively new concept and a new revenue channel for musicians. When did records become main stream? And how old is music? Technology gave artists a means to sell their work besides live performances. Technology also makes the market more efficient which leads to the costs being drive down. Physical media has been replaced with digital media. Physical stores replaced with digital marketplaces.
Without Spotify or other streaming services , piracy would be even more rampant with the ability of people to transfer 1000s of songs between other people in a matter of seconds. Only way to fight it is to lock down the devices which public doesn’t want and would require the government intervention.
