Independent label Hopeless Records was a founder member of indie think-tank ORCA, and now its president Louis Posen has taken to its Substack to argue that music-streaming “saved the industry but stifled the artist”.
“By shifting the metric of value from the album or song to the time spent listening to it, the industry has hit a structural ceiling that threatens the very diversity it claims to host,” wrote Posen.
His post criticises streaming’s ‘pro rata’ payouts model, suggesting that “in this model, 40,000 dedicated fans are ‘worth’ the same as 40,000 passive listeners”, and argues that in its current form the model “disproportionately favors music designed for lean-back listening and mass appeal”.
Posen has some ideas for changing this, starting with a “tiered artist layer” within streaming services that’s similar to what Spotify does for podcasts.
“While the standard library remains ‘all-you-can-eat,’ individual artist pages should feature a ‘Direct Access’ tier,” he wrote. “This could come in the form of a monthly artist subscription, for example $5.00–$9.99/month, and/or the ability to offer one off purchases.”
Early access to new releases, unreleased demos and tracks, livestreamed Q&As, behind-the-song commentary and first dibs on vinyl and merch bundles are among the perks Posen thinks could be offered.
“On average, a million streams [currently] drives $3,500 in income with an example of 100,000 monthly listeners,” he wrote. “That same artist could generate $30,000 or more per month in income with the same number of listeners through high-value offerings to core fans.”
