iTunes doesn't work for me for discovery. The killer feature for me in Spotify is that I can give anything a listen with no effort and no marginal cost. I subscribe to various third party play lists, so I get suggestions pushed to me. If I like something, then there's a tangent for me to go off and explore. Also, although a much smaller concern, is multi-device asset management. Having to copy stuff around is annoying, which means I don't do it, which means the collections on my work and private computers and my mobile are constantly out of sync.
But where I think you're mistaken is in that the business model conceptually doesn't work for makers of music. If I'm anything to go by (and anecdotally I am), Spotify facilitates a lot of new revenue to enter the system. The concrete distribution of that revenue currently doesn't favour indies, but there's nothing inherent about the business model that says that couldn't change.
Perhaps tier the payment per stream: Random access gets low (radio-like) payment, repeated access get higher and higher payment until $1 (iTunes price) is hit, then little to nothing after that. My listening patterns would certainly make such a model sustainable.
I subscribe to various third party play lists, so I get suggestions pushed to me.
I strongly suspect that you are not the typical user. last.fm has been around for years, but still barely anyone uses it. It seems the majority of people use iTunes and Spotify in the same way- to look up and listen to their favourite artists.
But where I think you're mistaken is in that the business model conceptually doesn't work for makers of music. If I'm anything to go by (and anecdotally I am), Spotify facilitates a lot of new revenue to enter the system. The concrete distribution of that revenue currently doesn't favour indies, but there's nothing inherent about the business model that says that couldn't change.
Perhaps tier the payment per stream: Random access gets low (radio-like) payment, repeated access get higher and higher payment until $1 (iTunes price) is hit, then little to nothing after that. My listening patterns would certainly make such a model sustainable.