and the same people go on with their lives and put on Spotify and feel self-righteous
Yeah but consider that for me for example, I was previously giving exactly 0 to artists. Now I give whatever tiny amount my odd song played here or there pays out. Which is more than previously.
Is it a lot? No. Do I listen to a lot of music? Hell no. Did I buy any music before as a result? Fuck no. And now I sometimes listen to some. Plus the music I listen to I couldn’t buy in physical anyways (low-fi or synth background noise while coding), and wouldn’t know where to buy digital even if I wanted to. Previously I just used a noise generator, btw.
It’s probably not a good idea to assume that 100% of listeners on spotify would have invested that same amount of money into physical sales.