Discourse around music streaming giant Spotify and the rates it pays musicians and creators for their content is never far away, with fans and artists alike decrying the platform and the small amounts it pays out for streaming. This hits smaller artists with less reach, or whose music is in a more niche genre particularly hard, but even major pop stars have trouble with the deal. One star with 8M monthly Spotify listeners has admitted she makes more money selling pictures of her feet on OnlyFans!
Noughties pop-princess Lily Allen, an English singer and songwriter with number 1 hits in the U.K., Canada, and Australia along with a top 10 hit in the U.S., is now an OnlyFans content creator selling pictures of her feet to loyal subscribers on the platform. Allen, who is married to Stranger Things star David Harbour, has 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has been the center of controversy regarding an animal adoption.
Shockingly, Allen states she makes more money from a mere 1000 subscriptions to her OnlyFans account than from Spotify! But when Internet trolls tried to shame her for it on social media platform X, Allen had more than enough to say as she took to X/Twitter to defend herself from detractors throwing shade about her career change.
And honestly? She’s got a point. Quite aside from Allen having the entrepreneurial spirit to see an opportunity and step right in, it feels shocking that someone with so many listeners can make more money from 1000 feet fans than 8 million music listeners! Of course, a shrewd observer may note that the premium Allen can charge for her subscription is likely to be quite high for non-X-rated pics of feet, and given the particular fanbase involved, can be cranked even higher for personal requests. Even the outrage is an advertisement for her subscription service, so it’s worth considering she might be fudging the numbers ever-so-slightly.
But at just $10 a month for the basic subscription, Allen is bringing in at least $10,000 per month from her OF account.
If her foot-related income really is more than Allen brings in from 8 million listeners, this is a shocking indictment of Spotify’s rates and the publisher agreements imposed on artists. It feels more than time for a real discussion about rates of artist pay and royalties, especially given that near-monopolistic giants of the industry such as Spotify command such a user base that even the very biggest artists are forced to use their platform. And some X users agreed, defending Allen and throwing their own shade on Spotify.
Spotify itself states that it does not pay artists per-play or per-stream, and that there are often complex arrangements regarding the payment of royalties involving publishers and artists. In a breakdown from Spotify, Spotify states that more than 10,000 artists made at least $50,000 from their music in 2023. However, there are no official figures for what and how artists are paid by the streaming giant, and given the sheer number of artists from all over the world whose work is present on Spotify, 10,000 making more than $50,000 yearly doesn’t seem like a very high number. And if that’s the case for musicians, whose work is enjoyed by so many, what does that say for even the most popular podcasts on the platform?
So it’s no wonder that artists are hot-footing it to other revenue streams. It’s a tough world out there.
