Comparing it to radio is where the trouble starts. A potential customer cannot rely upon radio to access your music/product. At best they'll hear a few of the a

Comparing it to radio is where the trouble starts. A potential customer cannot rely upon radio to access your music/product. At best they'll hear a few of the artist's tracks, if they're patient and lucky. Therefore the radio is in no way a substitute for owning the LP, it's more like an advert/complement than a competing service. But Spotify DOES let the potential customer access your product in full, removing the main incentive to buy your LP. Furthermore, you're not only competing with a free version of your own product, your competing with a vast catalog of other music, millions of records that can be accessed effortlessly. "Should I spend £10 on this one album, or should I spend £10 for a month of unlimited access to endless high-quality music?" The economic position this puts individual artists in is dire. Also, another thing about the ads is sometimes they're hardly ads at all, they're just Spotify announcements. I can't believe they'd be wasting spots like that if they were really pulling in serious advertising money.