This is a follow-up of another discussion.
So streaming platforms can’t pay the artists more than that, because the platforms’ clients (us) don’t pay enough for an annual subscription. A medium user probably listen to a 20-CDs worth of music while the subscription just costs him a mere 3-4 times the cost of a single CD. Intensive listeners, such as the people on this list, make things worse.
And if you listen to conferences and other podcasts, you’ll end up with much more than that, as a lesson or a conference will last about 1 hour to 1h30m, so each conference counts as an entire CD. (I think I have listened to about 25 lessons from Jan 1 to-day).
However Amazon is selling the CDs one piece-a-time at 0.99, that is the usual price for an entire CD. @Pjbelder Pieter-Jan, is this any better than Spotify, from the artist’s point of view?
The system is untenable for artists but indispensable for listeners.
Aside from the overall much lower cost impact (and space, as Andrew points out), we listeners can listen to as many performances of the same pieces we wish, which is all good for our musical knowledge, while once we usually purchased one CD (or, in my case, LP) and stick with that for many years. My listening skills and understanding has much improved since I have been able to listen to many different fine players.
I often don’t listen the entire track but just a few seconds, just to see if that is the piece I was looking for. Maybe this counts for a whole listening and generates revenue for the artist (it seems that just clicking on play button triggers the “listened” flag, but I don’t know for sure).
The Spotify app has problems. Its search function works badly. It hasn’t any booklet to download (see Andrew’s post for Presto streaming which offers booklets). And please look at this picture:
How am I supposed to know where to click if I want to listen to - say - the fugue in f sharp minor?
Rotating the phone doesn’t rotate the screen (on my iphone at least), clicking on the ellipsis doesn’t show any information on the track. I just have to click about by chance until I find the piece.
Of course the recording company should do better, for example abbreviating in WTC1 so more space is given to the title. Nevertheless, the app itself doesn’t work fine for classical/baroque music listeners.
Ir’s not a fault of a single recording company uploading on spotify: each and every CD of any recording company shows the same behaviour.
Opera is particularly affected. Look at this screenshot. One is simply unable to know who the singers are, which role are they singing, what aria or recitativo is that, etc.
I think I should unsubscribe from Spotify, 
if my daughters and my wife agree (they will not).