Comment by AlexandrB

> 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%.

Hahaha, I wish this was how it worked, but it's not. At all.

Suppose I spend all month listening only to Fugazi. Now some miniscule tiny fraction of my (and everyone else's) monthly payment will go to Fugazi. The biggest portion of my monthly payment will go to Taylor Swift because she got the most plays on the platform. This means it actually matters very little what I listen to because I listen to only a few hours of music a week. A coffee shop running Spotify will generate 16+ hours of listening per day and this will determine who gets my subscription money far more than my actions will.

What you're describing would be like heaven for independent artists compared to the status quo.

Having said that, you're right that AI music is partially about funnelling more money to the streaming platform. Even before AI generated music, Spotify was cutting deals with "chill vibes" artists where they would receive a smaller payment per play than a "normal" artist[1]. Mysteriously those artists ended up getting placed on "chill vibes" playlists more often than you would expect. Funny how that works. I expect the same chicanery is happening with AI.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_...