I agree that a per person split would be might be better (for how I think royalties should be distributed) -- but one would also take into account the ad revenue those tweens (and other "free" users) generate.
I don't know how Spotify is doing financially, but hopefully they make money off free users as well as paid users (but I'd not be surprised if they end up a bit like Opera did -- making money from paid users and licensing/bundling deals -- and just using the commercial breaks/ads as stick to guide users towards the paid service).
Either way I'd much prefer being able to pay for lossless records that I get to keep -- I gave up on Spotify quite early as it ended up a little like youtube -- come back to a playlist after a few months and half the songs were gone. I know they're better now, but that experience just underlined the idea that paying for licensing content in a way that leaves you vulnerable to that content disappearing is a very bad deal for me as a listener/consumer.
Its interesting that you mention their ad breaks. For 6 months, I had no idea that spotify operated a premium service whatsoever, until they imposed the 2.5hr limit per week on my account and hit me with more ads. I subscribed immediately.
I don't know how Spotify is doing financially, but hopefully they make money off free users as well as paid users (but I'd not be surprised if they end up a bit like Opera did -- making money from paid users and licensing/bundling deals -- and just using the commercial breaks/ads as stick to guide users towards the paid service).
Either way I'd much prefer being able to pay for lossless records that I get to keep -- I gave up on Spotify quite early as it ended up a little like youtube -- come back to a playlist after a few months and half the songs were gone. I know they're better now, but that experience just underlined the idea that paying for licensing content in a way that leaves you vulnerable to that content disappearing is a very bad deal for me as a listener/consumer.