You're right about artists going independent to capture more value for themselves, but you're wrong about the Spotify payouts being enough for a middle-class li

You're right about artists going independent to capture more value for themselves, but you're wrong about the Spotify payouts being enough for a middle-class living wage. It's nowhere close to being enough to support an artist. Streaming music is basically a loss-leader for artists these days. 1,000 streams on Spotify nets the artist $2.38 in payouts [0]. For an artist to earn $60,000/year that means that they would have to accumulate roughly 25,000,000 streams on Spotify. And that's assuming that you're a single person with 100% of the publishing and mechanical rights to your record. If you're a band, divide that by the number of band members or songwriters. Less the productions costs, less promotional costs, less expenses for equipment, less your manager's cut, less your label's cut. It goes on and on. [0]: https://soundcamps.com/spotify-royalties-calculator/ https://soundcamps.com/spotify-royalties-calculator/