Well, allegedly, no matter the percentage, streaming doesn't seem to be that much of a source of income for musicians. 
 
Me, I'd pay $30 an album if it meant that the production values go back to what they once were. 
 
But since albums are often even less expensive than they were when I was growing up in the 80's, and people are not even bothering to buy them anymore, this isn't going to happen any time soon... We get what we refuse to pay for.
 

Artists get paid from streams, it's just that the total they earn per fan is paid gradually throughout the fan's interest in a song rather than all at once at the point of purchase.

Let's say you have a CD containing 10 tracks that's retained your interest over the last 10 years and you've listened to it once a week. That's 5200 listens from which the artist earned a couple of dollars in royalty. How much would have they earned from the equivalent number of Spotify streams? Maybe about the same. I guess if you want to earn money from streams, you'd better put out albums of consistently good songs that people don't get bored of. Personally I've always felt ripped off after buying CD's for $20+ that have been left on the shelf after a couple of listens.

Besides which given that Spotify is used by a tiny fraction of music consumers, I really don't know how much artists are expecting to make from it.

Pretty much ALL the music I've purchased over tha past 5 years has been via Amazon. MP3 purchases were far from convenient, and sometimes required a couple retries. I really don't bother with MP3s anymore unless I just want one song.
 
Instead, I prefer to buy used CDs and rip them myself. That way I've got a hardcopy backup, and a copy to keep in the car. The price is usually the same as, if not less than, an album download.
 
A slight pang of guilt, though, knowing the artist gets nothing from my transaction. I reckon somebody will make up the difference for me when they buy a $100 concert ticket and a T-shirt.

Hi,
 
CD's for me

On a sidetone - Even though in itself, the experience of listening to a vinyl record can be gratifying on many levels, the pragmatic in me sides with digital media.
 
That being said, I think that, no matter how hard they try and package them, CD's - as a physical support - suck. Not only do they have no personality, but from unwrapping to trying to remove the actual CD from it's jewel case w/o breaking anything, working with CDs seem to be an exercise in inconvenience.
 
The gratifying aspect of unpacking a vinyl, the smell of it, the static when you pulled the actual disc from its paper sleeve... If CD's offered anything similar in terms of experience, I might no be so prone to rip and store them.
 
 

Firstly, can I say, I had exactly the same experience as Glyn - I was passing through the UK, I purchased the new Wolf Alice CD which came with a "free" download, so I  tried to download - what a pile of crap that was, and I got the message about the zip file etc - gave up on that and picked the physical cd up when I passed back through the UK!
I love Vinyl, still have my vinyl collection and have actually just upgraded my deck and cartridge. Totally agree with Rain - when CD's came out, they could never compare nor compete with the "event" that getting the latest release on vinyl was - the music, the artwork, perhaps cover notes. CD's cannot compete for obvious space restrictions. However they are more convenient so I have a lot of them as well as my vinyl!
Nigel
 
 

i've had several people download my new album from Amazon....
and no one has mentioned any issues at all.
 
i have an amazon account as well,
and store a lot of my purchased tunes on the amazon cloud,
and stream them whenever i want to listen,
again,
never any issues.
 

Does anyone remember borrowing vinyl from the library? I remember each LP would have a large sticker on the front on which was a circle divided into quadrants. Known scratches were drawn in their correct location on the circle so that if you returned it scratched, there would be no arguments about whether or not it was already damaged. Seems crazy now.

Sharke - wow vinyl from the Library - I had forgotten about that - you must look a lot younger in your photo than you really are!! Well unless you started listening to music and going to the library at a very young age!!
Nigel
 

Well I was born in 73 and vinyl was still pretty much dominant until I was 13 or 14. I seem to recall taking an AC/DC album out of the library when I was about 12.