For this to make complete sense, we'd have to have statistics that proves that free users and premium users have the same listening patterns on average, and I d

For this to make complete sense, we'd have to have statistics that proves that free users and premium users have the same listening patterns on average, and I don't think they do. Otherwise the fact remains that we who pay subsidize artists that are preferred by the non-paying users. For this reason, the following is the important difference: Other people's money goes there because they listened to it (Rebuttal: Many other people use free spotify, and didn't pay any money).