So I was more or less trying to make light of a generally shitty situation but just to clear up any confusion see below: .003 cents on average for a stream with ads
For an averagely popular artist (variable depending on how popular you are look at liz Pellys article on this)
1/7

So an indie artist will get way less per stream because of Taylor swift and Post Malone or whatever getting 10 millions streams a day. Also half your streams are
probably ad free. AAAnd you get less for “passive streams” (playisting and the like) So its hard to say what an 2/7

individual stream is actually worth. But on average its way less than the .003 Spotify touts. More like .0003 - .0005. Soo if you have a million streams 1,000,000 x .0005 = 500 bucks. That gets split between you and the label so about 150 - 250 to u AFTER label expenses 3/7

like putting out your record, which you split with them on the marketing side and you owe completely on the production side (mixing mastering...that stuff). So there you go. 0$ till the record is paid off and then once it is you get about 150-250 bucks per million streams 4/7

depending on a few nebulous factors. BTW There is a small royalty generated by the composition which I could explain but is complicated and ultimately negligible considering the amount u have to pay a 3rd party to capture them. Its usually more than offset by the amount 5/7

they take in return for a cut of your syncs which is a whole other thing. The point is, its not hyperbolic to say that an indie artist likely pays more to Spotify for an ad free subscription than they generate in royalties, especially if their album has not net recouped 6/7

which probably 75 percent of them never do. 7/7