Episode 24: Subscriber Share

Subscribers pay about $10 a month for most streaming services -- with that kind of cash, shouldn’t musicians be making more from these platforms? For their short history, music streaming services have operated by putting all of their subscription revenue into one big pool. The pool is then divided based on the number of times an artist is played -- this is called the pro rata method. Some people believe that this system is ripping customers off. Why shouldn’t your money go directly to the artists you’re listening to rather than into the big pool? Today on The Future of What, we talk to two of the people championing a new way of streaming called subscriber share, Sharky Laguana and Dick Huey. We also talk with Tim Quirk, formerly of Google Play, who argues against subscriber share.