alt Hacker NewsCDs get wildly different number of plays. But the number of plays, whether from a record or from a streaming service, isn't proportional to how glad you are that this music exists and you can listen to it.
The present system favors big artist rights owners a lot, but most of all it rewards owners of music played on repeat, i.e. background music.
I do think allocating money per-account or something should be better. Don't let a constant listener allocate the royalties from ten other people.
Trying to measure importance feels like a lost cause.