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Although this number clearly states the unfeasibility of subsisting solely on Spotify plays of a few songs composed, it fails to translate this number to the pr

Although this number clearly states the unfeasibility of subsisting solely on Spotify plays of a few songs composed, it fails to translate this number to the present value of the expected plays throughout the years before the song becomes public domain. Such value would constitute a fraction of the payment the artist would get for composing those songs, since, as mentioned in another comment, "selling" your songs on Spotify does not require you to refrain from selling them elsewhere. Only given the sum of the present value of all the different passive sources of revenue the artist will get from a song and the time he spent writing it can we begin to compare his remuneration with the minimum wage.

gabriel34 13y ago
Other point I saw recently here at HN is that the recording companies get the lions share of the revenue that comes from recording because investing in a up and coming artist has a high risk, therefore must bring high profits to be a viable business model. Those business who don't milk the successful artists don't have money to take a chance with the up and coming artists while rewarding the investors at a competitive rate, which means they don't get investors for future growth. Other sources of money for a business include it's own money (which we established such a business wouldn't have) and loan (which require the business to have a higher return rate than the loan's interest).