Some analysis on the comparison of the two systems. This system chooses all streams (one play by one user of one track) equally, rather than by treating all su

Some analysis on the comparison of the two systems. This system chooses all streams (one play by one user of one track) equally, rather than by treating all subscriptions (one user) equally. When you treat all streams equally, you effectively make a system where users who listen to the most streams have their weight felt the most. For instance, consider this world with two users. [User 1 listens to artist A once a month] [User 2 listens to artist B five times a month] Under the Spotify stream-based system, artist B is awarded five times as many royalties as artist A. This might be seen as "fair" in that royalties are paid out depending on the proportion of value/happiness/"utility" created, assuming each stream produces the same unit of value. Under an alternative user-based system, artist A and artist B are awarded equally. This might be seen as "fair" in that royalties map as directly as possible to the user fees. It sees users 1 and 2 as equally satisfied through their bare use of the service, regardless of the number of streams they've consumed. People generally want to see systems where value creation is proportionately awarded. Under that goal, which model is "better" depends on how you map value to streams and users. That's the core problem... also consider some complicating factors like users gaming the system by spam-streaming artists they want to support or the value associated with stream consumption by free users (a large part of Spotify's user base).