I always assumed it was to account for the non-paying listeners (i would rather this was done through a budget - e.g. 20% of listeners are not paying so upfront

I always assumed it was to account for the non-paying listeners (i would rather this was done through a budget - e.g. 20% of listeners are not paying so upfront take 20% of my money to pay for them - then do a fair calc on splitting users revenue by their listens). I think effectively record labels can say something like this to spotify: hey 70% of music listened to is the charts by non paying members, what are you doing to protect our investment? i dont know if its a simple as that but i can imagine there are very particular shapes to listening behaviours/