The streaming industry pays so very little to the many musicians whose work make them run. It is really sad.

they pay a lot more than piracy

I’d bet that is not true. I grew up with Napster, Kazaa, Soulseek, Limewire and friends and they allowed me to find so many fantastic musicians and helped start to shape my tastes in music. When I was older and had a job, I supported many of these musicians by buying their albums (and much less frequently, going to one of their concerts).

The thing about art, IMO, is that it does a great service for humanity in giving us hope, purpose, and something to live for. When you treat artists as a cost to just minimize, you make it harder for any of them to succeed at making a living doing their work. I believe that the effects of the very low streaming royalty payments will have a chilling effect on professional musicians making a real go of it.

Then you can think of Spotify as a more user friendly alternative to Napster, Kazaa, Soulseek, Limewire and friends.

I'm not sure it works out that way in practice. I use YouTube Music primarily, and I used to buy music from Google Play on occasion, but since they've gone all in on streaming, I can't even purchase lossless audio from them anymore.

That is making a couple of people extremely rich while contributing basically nothing back to the culture they are leeching off.

I’ll take Napster over this any day, at least they didn’t have profits at the forefront.