Sure, each stream isn’t a lot (around $0.0035 on Spotify, more on Apple Music, less on YouTube) BUT, when a song is included on a hot playlist, that could mean millions of streams a month for an artist that may have exactly zero “fans.” This is happening. But regardless if the fan ever gets to the final step of paying the artist directly, the artist is getting paid for every stream.

Now, people listen to music (for free), discover artists, then become fans and THEN pay the artist (for tickets, merch, crowdfunding, etc). Before, artists had to get fans first who would then buy their music to listen to it. We’ve now seen that not only can Spotify be a powerful discovery mechanism, but is actually enabling totally independent artists to earn a substantial income from the platform.īut this isn’t happening from the traditional ways that an artist grew a music career. The only problem? They were so, so wrong. They claimed that Spotify was devaluing music, was going to prevent artists from being able to make a living, and no one was going to make any money off of the paltry amount that Spotify pays per stream. old people), were wreaking havoc on every outlet they could: NPR, Billboard, Trichorist, you name it. I know I know, this is totally counter-intuitive based on all the headlines you’ve read since Spotify launched in the US about 6 years ago. It has proven to be one of the most powerful tools at, wait for it, making money in the digital age. For the past few years the industry has been obsessed with Spotify.Īnd rightfully so.

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