Why not have an a-la-carte model instead? Assuming many people only listen to a couple hundred songs per months, at Spotify's per stream rate of .3-.5¢, they wo

Why not have an a-la-carte model instead? Assuming many people only listen to a couple hundred songs per months, at Spotify's per stream rate of .3-.5¢, they would pay a lot less if they only paid for the music they were listening to. I think the "user centric" model has potential for problems because artists would feel cheated that they don't get paid proportional to how many listens they drive. And why shouldn't they feel cheated? If someone is listening to an artist for hours a day, everyday, then that person is getting a lot more value out of the artist than a measly 7 bucks(/euros) per month. So it's natural for the artist to demand to be paid more. The issue is basically that the more money comes not from the person who's driving more listens, but instead from other users who are using the service far less. The pro-rata approach basically exists to hides this unfairness, since paying for a streaming subscription feels like paying a fixed cost for a fixed service (access to a massive library). But there's potential for disruption, I think, via a service that exposes this unfairness through a-la-carte rates.