All up, it looks like she made about $85,000 from October of 2011 to March of 2012. That's antihistamine money, especially for someone not making pop music. This appears to be unambiguously good news for independent artists.
Proclaiming 2 quarters' income figures from one single player as unambigiously good news for a huge diverse market is a bit hyperbolic, don't you think?
It's like saying a $1M exit for a random startup is unambigiously good news for all startups. What if the startup took an investment of $2M? What if the founders lost money and are now stuck in a low paying job? What looks good on the surface could very well be bad news if you know all the facts.
The most interesting point is that most of this isn't from Spotify or any other streaming service.
People use these services the same they would as if they owned the music. It is possible that total lifetime revenue from these services could be higher, but I doubt it.
In the future I think this is going to have to play out the way it has been for Netflix: As streaming services disrupt other revenue models, content producers will begin charging streaming providers more money.
Right now, though, it's still easy to think of Spotify in the way Keating suggests: As a form of advertising first and foremost.
