While I certainly understand the gripe, I think that larger artists are hurt more than smaller artists by streaming services. One reason is that when people hav

While I certainly understand the gripe, I think that larger artists are hurt more than smaller artists by streaming services. One reason is that when people have to purchase music, they blow their whole budget on a few albums, whereas when you can basically rent content you end up consuming a wider distribution, helping long-tail artists. Furthermore, obscure artists are hurt less by these services because the services aid discovery more than older music delivery paradigms, like radio which is a hype-factory for music labels. This effect is well documented, for instance more revenue is generated by songs outside of Rhapsody's top 10,000 than in it[1]. [1] https://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecenter/workingpapers/documents/Yang_Targeted_Search_and_the_Long_Tail_Effect.pdf https://www.law.northwestern.edu/research-faculty/searlecent...