104
Spotify now has 220 million paying subscribers
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
It's revenue share with the record labels. If those labels don't pay the artists well that's a different issue.
I release independently and I earned a whopping $43 for 50k+ streams (so far). Sure, 50k isn't much compared to mainstream artists, but $43 isn't much either.
It's revenue share based on how many streams you get. Big record labels can probably negotiate a better share, but if you sign to one there's no guarantee you will actually see that extra money.
Record labels ripping off music artists was incredibly common in the time before streaming, so I imagine it still is today.
That's about what YouTube creators would get for the same amount of hits, which still doesn't make it a lot but I think it's an interesting comparison.