If you're buying 1 - 2 albums per month, at a price of about $10 per album and with artists/composers on average being paid a flat 20% of album sales[0], then y

If you're buying 1 - 2 albums per month, at a price of about $10 per album and with artists/composers on average being paid a flat 20% of album sales[0], then you'd be giving an artist $2-4 USD for that album. If that artist is a smaller artist and is releasing their album relatively independently (very common these days), then their percentage earned can be 50% - 80% instead, leading to you paying the artist more like $5-10 USD for those album(s). For streaming music, let's say you're listening to the artists music in the USA (meaning your streams are worth the most). Let's also assume an average song length of 4 minutes and an average per-stream payment to the artist of $0.003526648542 dollars since you're in the USA[1]. In this world, if you listen to that artist for 3 hours a day, every day, for all 30 days in a month, then you will listen to 1350 songs from that artist and earn them ~$4.76 with all your listening. So while it is possible that you could listen to an artist so much on a streaming platform that you give them more than if you buy an album, I wouldn't call it super likely. [0] - https://www.recordingconnection.com/reference-library/recording-entrepreneurs/how-do-record-labels-turn-a-profit/ https://www.recordingconnection.com/reference-library/record... [1] - https://www.igroovemusic.com/blog/wie-viel-erhalte-ich-pro-stream-auf-spotify.html?lang=en https://www.igroovemusic.com/blog/wie-viel-erhalte-ich-pro-s...