It doesn't take too much time listening to Pandora before you realize how narrow their library is in reality. At this point, if I put on a station I can genuinely predict what song is going to come up, at least I can guarantee it won't be anything new. As for Spotify, its truly no more than mediocre. Just like Pandora. So, if some mediocre music listeners want to listen to mediocre amounts of mediocre music, they can go crazy for all I care. But any true music listener knows that nothing beats your own library. As far as I'm concerned, the audience that misses out on those artists, and the artists themselves that don't earn what they should from streaming, wouldn't have been in touch anyway. If I really want to learn about jazz, classical, or Radiohead, I think anyone with common sense can come up with a better place to look than Pandora.
How many percent of music revenue comes from "true" music listeners, do you think? That's a pretty weak argument. I don't know about Pandora, but Spotify has a stunning array of music (maybe it's different in the US). Yeah, I don't find absolutely everything I'm looking for, but they have probably more than 80% of the music I listen to, and I listen to a lot of lesser known stuff.
I wasn't arguing anything for the artists, I'm talking from a listeners' standpoint. If I never find out about bands outside of Pandora's library, nobody is at a loss, because I'm not the kind of person who would have found those bands anyway. i.e. If I'm going to spend all my money on a Lil Wayne cd, you can't make the argument that hip hop is killing 'real music' because I'm obviously not in the market for the Velvet Underground in the first place.
Pandora really isn't the main "problem", Spotify is the real threat. You can find all sorts of obscure stuff there. I don't know where I fall in this debate, though. I frankly use Spotify a lot, and I pirate a lot of stuff too.
They didn't profit more where they could have, yes. Selfish isn't it:/ Unless, you know, they're a great band, and I rip their discography, and then I fall in love and see their shows, and tell my friends and they see their shows, and then we buy their records, and talk about them on Facebook and all of a sudden they've reached an extra thousand people. Still selfish, but the only thing being lost is money. There's a lot more than that.