Yes, and to extend this line of thinking: Spotify pioneered this model as a solution to rampant music piracy and consequently very low and diminishing revenues

Yes, and to extend this line of thinking: Spotify pioneered this model as a solution to rampant music piracy and consequently very low and diminishing revenues for recorded music. For the music consumer it's a beautiful proposition to have this enormous catalog for $10 or so a month. The music industry now has record revenues, and the streaming platforms can, and often do, turbo charge a new artist's career. When I browse Spotify randomly I'm frequently surprised by coming across artists that I've never heard of with 1 million, 3 million, 15 million, etc monthly listeners, and then finding good, interesting, historically significant but obscure artists with just a few hundred or thousand listeners. My friend, a recording artist, recently broke the 1 million monthly listeners barrier on Spotify, he's dead chuffed of course, but this is more listeners than innumerable great, classic artists. I don't see this discrepancy as a failure of the streaming system, but as a success: my friend is a young artist making money and getting good exposure. Just saying: yes Spotify has it's faults, but it's also great too.