And neither does anybody else, and that's why there's a new article like this every six months. The Next Great Thing is always "better content" as if the self-loathing realization that the majority of what's available is excrement will somehow inspire them to ignore the fact that the high ground has been ceded to the deep pockets.

Pandora paid Pharrell $2700 for "Happy." I don't listen to the radio but that fuckin' song was unavoidable. Pandora? $60 per million streams. Spotify? $400 per million. Youtube? Well, you get about a thousand for the second million. That's barely better than songwriters make on the radio. Look how outraged we all were three years ago when artists thought they were making ten times that:

The artist website goes into further breakdowns of the numbers. For instance, it says a “niche indie album” resulted in $3,300 in Spotify payouts in July, while a “global hit album” led to $425,000 in payouts. It notes that Spotify pays out $6,000 to $8,400 per million listens, compared with $3,000 for a “video streaming service” such as YouTube and $1,300 to $1,500 for a “radio streaming service” such as Pandora.

But the real bitch? performers never got paid for radio play, just writers. Performers got paid for sales.

And sales no longer exist.