> 3. The cost of streaming music is WAY WAY WAY too low. They priced an entire month of music at about £10, the same as a CD. That's 720 hours (30 days) for the same price as just over an hour of music. This works out at £0.013888888888889 per hour, or just over 1p for an hour of music. This is then SPLIT between the streaming company, the label (if one), the artist's manager, and the artist.
But, unlike movies or any other service, the music service is repeatable and potentially generates infinite value over the years, with very minimal cost of maintenance. Once it is submitted to spotify, it is there forever, generating revenue, without you doing anything at all.
But that IS the same as movies and any other service - once it is available on iTunes does the film producer need to do any more work to make revenue? No. Once someone has written their software and hosted it somewhere, do they need to do any more work to extract money from it? No.
Yet the film industry saw sense to charge £7 - £13 for a film rental or purchase PER FILM and not charge £10 for an entire month of cinema films.
This isn't true for Netflix since they get old films, but it isn't true for "just at the cinema" new releases.
>I usually listen to a song multiple times each day.
Used to be I bought a CD for say $10, listened to it probably hundreds to thousands of times, say around a penny per listen. Then I'd resell the CD, say for $5, and someone else could get another 1000 listens with no money going to an artist.
An artist used to get around 10% minus packaging costs, so say at most $1 per CD.
So an artist then could get under 0.1 cents per listen, maybe vastly less.
Next, a song plays on the radio to millions, and the artist gets (?). I think that was quite small too. Even then, touring was where most of the money was made - the CD and radio game was to get exposure and fans, many of whom would then pay $50-$100 for one evening of listening to the band live.
I'm not sure how all the econ works out now without spending too much time digging into it, but making music has never been a good income stream for any but a tiny, tiny percent of artists.
It still doesn't reduce the initial price/cost of the film simply because you choose to watch it only once. You still paid a reasonable price for it, and can rewatch it many many many times if you want.
This isn't the same with the music cost - you paid a tiny amount; they made a tiny amount of money - that's the unsustainable bit.
I'm the opposite to you - I will watch a film a few times, but only if I enjoyed it (as you said). I don't listen to the same song multiple times per day, let alone multiple times per week.
But, unlike movies or any other service, the music service is repeatable and potentially generates infinite value over the years, with very minimal cost of maintenance. Once it is submitted to spotify, it is there forever, generating revenue, without you doing anything at all.