Assuming a fixed fee, it's a tradeoff. Do you let the people with more plays steer everyone else's money, or do you let plays from different people be worth different amounts?

I think the first option is worse.

Neither option pays a fixed amount per play, so that factor doesn't favor either choice.

One way it could work is if Spotify divided say $8 per user across all the streams that user listened to that month. So if a user only listens to Justin Bieber this month, he'd get the full $8 in stream royalties, while someone listening to more artists would redistribute their $8 across all of them.

I read this as splitting each user's monthly payment only across the artists they themselves listened to (like how YouTube premium works) instead of pooling everything together. So artists with more paying listeners would get more, while artists who only get listened to by free bot accounts wouldn't get anything.

how would this work if i listen to 1000 bands? the split would be miniscule.

Do you mean, how do you handle $0.001 monthly payouts? Spotify could set a payout threshold. If the threshold is not passed in a given month, the balance carries over to the next month.

The split would be fair, and if the same algorithm applied to every subscriber, popular musicians would get paid more.

If you listen to one or two songs each from a thousand bands, the amount each band gets is minuscule with either method.

this was basically what I was asking. would this scheme actually make more money for the musicians? thanks for a reply.

The total amount doesn't change, but I think it would be fairer.

No I'd like my subscription (which I canceled due to the new UI and new ToS) should go only to the artists I listen to, proportionally to the amount of minutes played.

Search for white noise and you'll understand why this is not a great idea.

If that is what the user wants to listen to?

How big share of users play white noise on repeat really. One in 100?