I don't think current subscription systems make the best use of this data. I personally believe that royalties should be calculated per individual paying user account rather than aggregated over total playbacks in the service.

In other words, If I only listen to 'my favorite niche band' in a month, but don't use the service much, it's unlikely that they will see anything near the full possible share of royalties from that months $10. The system instead is biased to musicians whose fans use the system most heavily on loop - ironically more likely to be taylor swift type pop megastars.

[edit - explained more clearly by http://lit.vulf.de/spotify-so-little/]

Anyone know how apple will compare on royalties after the 3 month period compared to spotify? I've been a spotify premium subscriber since 2009, but would move to a system that meets my definition of equitable.

This is one reason I pretty much just leave classical music on in the background 16/7. I'm absolutely not abusing the service -- I'm paying a subscription for exactly the right to do this. And, it helps the artists who get most shafted by the aggregate play count payout model.

That seems wrong.. you can easily track app usage. Apple and Google have insane amounts of information about the devices and apps being used on each device.