https://thenextweb.com/insights/2021/04/08/listen-up-streaming-popular-music-playlists-hurts-smaller-artists-revenue/

When music fans listen to their favorite album, there’s a certain satisfaction derived from knowing that they paid for the music they love – they’re giving back to the artists who made it.

That’s not the case on music streaming platforms, where artists aren’t paid a fixed fee when you stream their songs or albums. Instead, your subscription fee enters a big pot which is then split between every artist on the platform based on their share of overall streams. You can think of the payment pot as a pie chart: the size of an artist’s slice of revenue is determined by how many streams they get compared with their fellow artists.