A lot of people are often curious and ask me, “Do you actually make money from Spotify or Apple Music?” My short answer to them is “Yes, some.”
Every time a song is streamed, a fraction of a cent is earned – (so obviously, the more streams, the merrier). That fraction depends upon a number of factors like which streaming service it is, whether the listener is a paid subscriber or free user with ads, etc. Of the most popular services Tidal pays the best by far. Apple Music and Amazon are tied next, with Spotify just behind them paying slightly less. The biggest loser is YouTube, which pays poorly compared to the others. To give you an idea, to earn $100 you need 20,000 streams on Apple Music and 25,000 streams on Spotify. Or put a different way, the top 5 songs on Michael Jackson’s Spotify have earned a bit over $7 million.
Here’s an example based on my own listening. Last year I became totally obsessed with the soundtrack to Tolkien by Thomas Newman. I think it became my ‘subway’ music for about 2 months straight. So let’s suppose I got through the full album (25 tracks) once a day for 60 days. That means I had a total of about 1,500 streams. So I paid Thomas Newman $6 for what I would consider to be an amazing piece of work. Not too great. Damn, writing this has now made me feel like a jerk. That said, if 10,000 people listen to it the way I did, the number becomes $60,000. So as I mentioned before, it’s very much a numbers game.
So I guess in conclusion unless you listen to music a freakish amount, the best way to support a musician / artist / composer / band who’s music you love is still to buy it – from their website or online stores like Bandcamp. It’s almost more a gesture of support and respect than a means to hear the music. I’ve definitely bought albums out of support and then turned around and just streamed them. Convenience is definitely King. I’m well aware that these days most people simply aren’t going to buy the majority of the music they listen to. However, even just sharing what you find and play regularly with friends and family is super helpful, hopefully creating a snowball effect of new listeners. And actually, it’s really cool to see a huge ecosystem of user-created playlists that has formed for exactly this purpose!
I don’t say all of this begrudgingly it’s just the reality. It is certainly a lot easier to convince people to press PLAY than it is to press PAY and open their wallets. So to that end, this access model has definitely allowed my music to reach far more people. However I don’t think we develop the same relationship with the music we stream that we used to by owning it and really becoming invested in the humans behind it.
One last thought while I’m on the topic. If it seems like you’re bombarded by the plethora of music streaming services out there and wondering: “Why should I choose this one over that one?” I found a cool article on the topic that’s very extensive, properly researched, and well-written: Best Music Streaming Services Based on In-Depth Reviews. It could be a good starting point and offer some insight for you depending which features are most important to you!
