If everyone listened to the same amount of music in proportion to the amount they're paying it wouldn't matter which way the royalties were calculated, as the a

If everyone listened to the same amount of music in proportion to the amount they're paying it wouldn't matter which way the royalties were calculated, as the artists would get the same amount either way. Money is fungible, so it doesn't matter whether they get your subscription fee or a much smaller slice of all the subscriptions as long as you listening to their music leads to them getting at least $7.50 extra that month. The discrepancy is in the fact that those who listen to less music on a flat-rate plan pay more per track, which is not accounted for in the "percentage of worldwide plays" metric. If there are, say, an average of 100 tracks played per subscriber per month, and you play 1000 tracks from your favorite indie artist (even non-exclusively), they're actually doing better with this "worldwide plays" metric than they would otherwise—each play is worth about 7.5¢ ($7.50 for 100 plays), so they'd get $75 based on your activity. You contribute more plays but not more money compared to other subscribers, which means other subscribers are subsidizing your music preferences. However, if you only listen to 10 tracks per month, even if they're all from the same artist, the situation is more like what you described, with most of your subscription going to support artists you don't listen to. In this case they'd only get 75¢ of your $7.50. So to optimize the royalties to your favorite artists, the real question is: Do you (and other fans of indie music) listen to more music than the average subscriber, or less?