The whole system seems like a sham to me. If one artist has fans that listen 24/7 and another artist has fans that only listen for one hour a day (but that artist is all they listen to), it should be the same. Each person’s account should have its own “pot” out of the subscription fee that only they can allocate to the artists they listen to. Duration of listening shouldn’t matter at all.
It isn’t just corporations that have ruined everything, it’s spammers and scammers and cybercriminals too. Searching any topic these days is a crapshoot, with a high likelihood of falling into a spammer’s tarpit.
To me it feels like the internet is evolving into a virtual Dark Forest. We float around in these little bubbles of sanity, hiding amid a yawning expanse of seething chaos.