99% of that 10 billion went to a handful of artists. Actually, I'd wager nearly half of it went to labels and other middlemen, but that's beside the point. The vast majority of money in the music industry never trickles down, ever.

edit: I looked it up, 70% of spotify's payouts go directly to labels, not artists. So...that $10 bil is nothing.

This is by design and it's the same broken system that metallica defended in the 90s/00s because it benefits large artists while fucking over the other 99%.

We keep repeating the same script using the same busted short term logic.

Labels suck but when we're considering the merits of Spotify it's not their fault and artists can put music on the service without an abusive label.