I agree. For me, there's no reason to buy CDs anymore. Tidal streams CD quality and I'm already paying $20/month for that. My understanding is that Tidal cuts the artist in more so than Spotify. But artists make a lot more from Spotify because there's way more subscribers. I think a lot of the artist complaints come down to the deals those artists made with the record company or the streaming services. Some small artists actually make quite a lot from streaming if they don't have a record company to pay. I think it's the artist's responsibility to make a good deal for themselves and it's foolish for the artist to blame the consumer for streaming and not buying.
It's the deals the record companies cut with the streaming services, and small artists don't make squat from streaming services unless they can somehow manage to be "small artists," without record company contracts, who are getting millions of plays. Who might that be? The real problem isn't even the record companies or the streaming services. The business guys will always take all the money, given the opportunity to do so. That's like a natural law or something. The problem is that our copyright laws haven't been updated since the '70s, and don't protect artists in the world of digital distribution. It will eventually discourage people from entering the business, blunt creation of new product, and our do-nothing Congress will be forced to act. When they do, the price of streaming, which is unnaturally low, will go up significantly and/or the record companies and streaming services will get a much smaller cut. You should, and hopefully will be paying for the amount you listen, to the artists you listen to, and the streaming services will get a small cut of their income instead of the other way around. Free streaming will become a thing of the past. Personally, I'm keeping an optical drive to burn CDs to my library until that day arrives. $20 a month is nothing. Less than two CDs. 13 songs - less than one CD - on iTunes. It's a great deal for listeners, a great deal for the streaming services. Artists short of huge pop stars getting millions of plays can't even make a decent living from it and it is stifling innovation in an area where innovation is everything.
I won't participate in the destruction of the art.
Tim