> You say that you “know” that terrestrial broadcast isn’t based on the number of listeners, and then go and make the same argument that Spotify pays better tha

> You say that you “know” that terrestrial broadcast isn’t based on the number of listeners, and then go and make the same argument that Spotify pays better than radio based on “radio plays with n listeners.” What I am saying is that even though the $0.12 isn't based on the number of listeners, there is a number of listeners (n). So that $0.12 should be divided by that n in order to calculate how much money is paid per listen. If that n > 265, then Spotify is paying more per listen. I agree that the on-demand nature means Spotify should cost more than radio. Still, the argument that Spotify does pay less than radio per listen is wrong, and it makes your case a lot weaker if insist on that, because it's contrary. When I said $0.12 a stream isn't a viable model for music, I didn't mean because it paid the artists too little, I meant it cost too much! Paying the artist and songwriter $0.12 per stream means charging the user about $0.15 each time they listen to the song. (Which doesn't seem right when compared to the purchase price of a song, unless people listen to music they purchase fewer than 8 times on average.) If they stream 25 hours per month, at average song length of 4 minutes, that's about 375 songs per month, or about $56/month. For heavy listeners, it would be a lot more. I don't think many people would sign up at that level. It definitely couldn't be covered by advertising. That said, you could probably get a lot more than Spotify is paying. Still, it does indicate some room there to get more than the $0.00318. It is surprising to me that we don't see more exclusivity with music like we do with video content, where subscriptions to various services end up being necessary if you want to watch a particular show. The consumption patterns are quite different. However, given the number of competing platforms out there and the low switching costs associated associated, probably the best strategy is for a whole company with a lot of publishing rights to pull their content from the lowest paying services. Something like what Disney did to Netflix.