The Streaming Paradox
By Written by Peter McVeigh
Before we get into this, a quick disclaimer: II'm not a Spotify expert. I'm not going to tell you how to pitch to editorial playlists, how to game the algorithm, or how to go from 200 monthly listeners to 200,000. That'sn't my area, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can tell you is what years of being a working musician has taught me about what streaming actually is, what it costs you, and how to decide where it fits in your career. I'm also planning to bring in people over the coming months who are far better qualified than me on the growth and discovery side of things, for those of you whose focus is building a Spotify audience. Watch this space. But first, let me tell you what I actually think.
The Maths Nobody Wants to Do
Spotify pays somewhere between $0.003 and $0.005 per stream. Let's be generous and call it half a cent. That means to earn the equivalent of the UK minimum wage for a single month - roughly 1,700 - you'd need approximately 340,000 streams. Every month. Just to break even on a living wage, before you've paid for recording, mixing, mastering, artwork, distribution, instruments, rehearsal space, or travel.
To put it another way: a song that gets a million streams - which sounds enormous, which your aunt will tell her friends about, which will make you feel briefly like something is happening - will earn you somewhere between 2,500 and 4,000. Before your distributor takes their cut. Before your collaborators take their share. Before tax.
A million streams. Enough for a second-hand car, if you're lucky.
Now, I'm not saying this to be depressing. I'm saying it because I think a lot of artists - particularly younger artists starting out - have absorbed the idea that streaming success is the same as financial success, and those two things aren't the same at all. they'ren't even close to the same.
Who Is This Actually Working For?
Here is the question worth asking: if musicians aren't making meaningful money from streaming, who is?
Spotify posted revenues of over thirteen billion dollars in 2023. The company has been through years of losses and significant layoffs, but it remains the dominant platform in music streaming globally, and its executives and early investors have become extraordinarily wealthy. The major labels - Universal, Sony, Warner - negotiated equity stakes in Spotify in exchange for their catalogues in the platform's early years. They don't just collect streaming royalties. They own a piece of the machine that pays them those royalties.
The independent artist at the bottom of this structure collects fractions of fractions, with no equity, no seat at the table, and no say in how the rates are set.
This isn't an accident. It's a business model. And it's worth understanding clearly: the streaming economy wasn't designed to make artists wealthy. It was designed to make music accessible at scale while generating returns for the investors and rights-holders who built the infrastructure. Artists - and particularly independent artists - are the raw material. The content. The fuel.
Musicians as a Free Marketing Department
Here is the thing that genuinely bothers me about the way streaming has reshaped how artists work. We spend an enormous amount of our time and energy driving people to these platforms. Every social media post pushing a Spotify link. Every stream now story. Every reminder to add the track to your playlist. Every email to your mailing list with a link to the algorithm.
We're doing free marketing for someone else's business. We're building engagement, growing monthly listener numbers, contributing to a platform's active user stats - and the platform's advertising revenue, premium subscription conversions, and investor valuations benefit from that activity in a way that's wildly disproportionate to what filters back to us.
I've thought about this a lot. And I've come to the conclusion that I don't particularly want to spend my limited time and energy doing unpaid marketing work for a business that's making billions and paying me fractions.
That might sound bitter. I don't mean it bitterly. It's just an honest assessment of the transaction.
What Happened When I Walked Away
A few years ago I removed my full catalogue from Spotify. I still had music on every other streaming platform - Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon, YouTube, Bandcamp. Everything except Spotify. I made that decision deliberately, as a kind of protest, and also because I was tired of the whole thing.
It damaged my career. I'm going to be straight with you about that.
I was playing a gig up on the north coast - one of those nights where the room was right and the crowd was in. Afterwards, a couple came up to me, clearly having had a good time, and one of them said something I'ven't forgotten: I'm so glad we came out tonight. We almost didn't because I couldn't find your music anywhere.
They'd searched for me on Spotify, found nothing, and had nearly talked themselves out of coming to the gig. They'dn't thought to look on Apple Music. They'dn't gone to Bandcamp. They searched for me where they search for everyone, found a gap, and very nearly decided I didn't exist.
That's the reality of Spotify's dominance. It'sn't just a platform. For a significant portion of the listening public, it's the definition of whether you're a real artist. If you'ren't there, you'ren't findable in the way that actually matters to a casual listener who hasn't already committed to seeking you out.
I put music back up. Specifically, a collection of what I call my Greatest Non Hits - the songs that matter to me regardless of whether they ever charted - and my most recent album. That's what I've on there now. Not my full catalogue. Just enough to answer the question does this person exist when someone searches for me after a gig.
How I Actually Use It
I don't tend to my Spotify. I don't watch the numbers, I don't try to chase playlist placements, I don't stress about monthly listeners. I put the music up and I leave it alone.
My focus is on the people in the room. The audience I can see. The ones who come back, who buy the record, who turn up on a Tuesday night in November when it's raining and they could be at home. Those are my people. That's where my energy goes.
I push for people to buy my music. Not aggressively - I'm not going to stand on stage haranguing anyone - but clearly and honestly. Because the arithmetic is simple: if you want making music to be a profession rather than a very expensive hobby, there has to be a meaningful financial return somewhere. And streaming, at the volumes I operate at, isn't that return.
A record sale - a download, a vinyl, a CD - represents an actual transaction between me and someone who has decided my music is worth paying for. That means something to me beyond the money itself. It means they've made a choice. Streaming is passive. Purchasing is an act.
I'm not against streaming. I'm against the idea that streaming is enough, or that chasing streaming metrics is the best use of a musician's finite time and attention.
What Streaming Is Actually Good For
I want to be fair about this, because I'm not trying to talk anyone out of using these platforms. Streaming is genuinely useful for some things.
Discovery - a new listener in a city you've never played can find you, hear three songs in a row, and decide they want to come to your next show. That happens. It happened with that couple on the north coast, in reverse - they'd heard of me somehow, searched for me, and nearly lost the thread because I wasn't there.
Convenience - listeners listen where it's easy. That's just human behaviour. Having your music available where people already are is better than making them work to find it.
Credibility - fair or not, a Spotify presence is part of what signals to promoters, venues, and press that you're a working artist. It's a box. It's worth having ticked.
Sync and licensing leads - music supervisors and publishers sometimes search Spotify as part of their research. Having a clean, complete presence can help here.
But notice what streaming is good for: it's good for being found, being heard, and being taken seriously. It'sn't, for most independent artists, a revenue strategy in itself. The revenue has to come from somewhere else - live performance, sync deals, direct sales, licensing, teaching, session work, brand partnerships.
Streaming is the window display. It'sn't the shop.
The Coming Months
As I said at the start - this is my perspective, shaped by my career and my priorities. If your focus is building a Spotify audience, growing monthly listeners, and cracking the playlist ecosystem, that's a legitimate strategy, and there are people who know far more about it than I do.
I'm going to be bringing some of those people in to talk about exactly that. The growth side. The pitching side. The algorithm side. If that's what you're here for, it's coming.
But I wanted to write this first, because I think it's important that we go into those conversations with clear eyes about what we're actually dealing with. Streaming is a tool. It's a useful tool. It'sn't the point.
The point - at least for me - is the music, and the people who come out on a rainy Tuesday to hear it.
That's worth more than a million streams.
Peter McVeigh is the founder of Music Manager Resource.