I already knew that streaming revenues were paltry. I already knew that, compared to, say, radio play royalties, streaming revenues were pretty damn embarassingly meagre.
Important note – I’m not going to name any particular streaming service in this post, ‘cos as far as I know they’re all much of a muchness as far as revenues are concerned (assuming, of course, that they make any effort to pay for “their” content at all).
So… having actually received my first statment from [insert name of massively dominant streaming service here], I now properly, truly, viscerally know how utterly crap streaming is as an income … well, stream.
In fact, the amount I’m getting per play from [hugely influential streaming service you probably use] is so tiny that Google refuses to even carry out the currency conversion from USD to GBP for me…
Yes, you read that right: roughly 4 plays = 1 US Cent.
This just underlines one thing, really – if you want to support an independent musician/producer/composer/artist of any kind (like, for example, me, perhaps?) absolutely the best way to do this is go to their shows, buy their music via their preferred outlet, in their preferred format. Giving someone a play and sharing their [massively disruptive streaming service] link isn’t going to do a thing to fund that next EP or gig or video.
Just sayin’, is all.
My store is over here, btw…
Morocco Dave 
First of all I DO agree that the pay per stream is VERY low, beyond resonable in my oppinion.
But on a side note, I kind of like the model for streaming. Again, I’m not talking about the money. So please hear me out for a bit before you judge me. Before streaming took over the way people consume music. With streaming as an artist, I’n my oppinion, you get a better ide on how many people actually listens to your music. When you sell a CD or any other physical medium, you get paid for all the songs once no matter if people even listen to the music or not. That I good for struggling artists to get that economic support, when people support you with buying a CD. But in the end you want people to actually listen and enjoy your music, right?
Bottom line. I’m not defending the almost indefinable amount of money you get per stream. I just think we as artists needs to adopt to the way people prefer to consume music. Becaus I think the model is pretty good, but the pay off needs to be better. That something when need to find a way to change!
Get my point?
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