How much does an artist get paid per iTunes download?
iTunes/Napster

The record company takes $5.35 and Apple keeps the remaining $3.70. Artists get nine cents for each individual song downloaded on Napster and iTunes. To put that into perspective, musicians need to sell 12,399 songs a month to earn a salary equal to a McDonald's employee.

They also get something like, $.008 per play on Spotify, or something like that ....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6ynyxmHCkY

Damn, that sucks.

Tech is also making it really hard to resist streaming. My car doesn't have a CD player - it would have been something like a $1,500 package add-on. 15 years ago, CD players were standard. My computer doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. A Bluetooth speaker is a lot cheaper than the options for a Hi-Fi component system or even a boombox.

And of course there's the feedback cycle: In the 90s and into the 00s, we were at peak record store. I used to be able to go into a record store and find tons of things in my preferred listening niches. Even big box stores like Target and Best Buy would stock a handful of albums from smaller labels. Now, a lot of independent record stores are closed and stores that do stock albums have really disappointing selections. I can either mail order from labels or I can stream.

So I stream. Even though I think it's bad for everyone: the artists, me (because I miss looking at artwork and fewer artists try to craft a great album from beginning to end), and it's a waste of energy and materials to build giant data centers for people to stream everything.

No, I get it ...
I used to love the artwork, crafting, and readable lyrics to most of the songs ...

The last one I remember really reading was "Annihilator - Never, NeverLand" ...
Jeff Waters really put a lot of time, planning, and effort to make you understand his thinking at the time ...
He/it is WELL thought out; people just listening to his music from streaming wouldn't get that now (necessarily) ...
 

My car has a CD player but why? I can't find any of my old CD's LOL

My PC also has no CD or DVD drive because all of that is now done over USB.
Even so it means if you want those retro features you have to buy add on external devices. So streaming and downloading over the internet or trading files on flash drives is cheaper and far more convenient.

USB DVD-RW+ are so cheap now ....
I just picked up one new for $15 the other week ...

That's good to know. I have those drives left over from slightly older PC's. My PC has internal connectors (power ect.,) for a couple but no bays for internal devices to mount in. With a little effort I could add provisions for mounting them internally but seems like a hassle. I would have to open the case window to gain access to the trays in older slaved in internal drives.

Nah ... They start at $13ish here ...

... and $14 here

.... just make sure you get at least USB 3.0