This is all about streaming platforms commandeering royalties away from artists.

The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening versus your monthly payment.

For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share.

But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%.

The “earnings per stream” number you’ll see cited is only an average and varies greatly because there’s only so much money to go around since your listening is unlimited.

But now you have services like Spotify that are removing real songs from “mood” playlists and replacing them with AI music that directs royalties toward Spotify.

Another factor that has happened: record labels have been working to screw over artists so much that they actually negotiated lower royalty rates with Spotify in exchange for company stock.

Giving up royalties but then instead owning a part of Spotify effectively directs money away artists and toward the labels.