They likely already record and store all the necessary data (and more) in order to build out people's listener profiles.
Pools of money is not really a relevant metric. They collect all the subscription premiums and pay a portion of them out according to their contractual agreements.
I agree that auditing would be more complicated, but usually one does selective audits anyway. I doubt this would be a show stopper.
The confusion on the receivers' side would increase massively though. As someone else has pointed out, there would be a lot less correlation between #plays and payout.
(To be clear, I have no real opinion on whether this would be a better schema.)
Pools of money is not really a relevant metric. They collect all the subscription premiums and pay a portion of them out according to their contractual agreements.
Pay(artist_i) = 0.7 * sum_j [ premium(viever_j) * ratio_ji ]
is not that much harder to do.
I agree that auditing would be more complicated, but usually one does selective audits anyway. I doubt this would be a show stopper.
The confusion on the receivers' side would increase massively though. As someone else has pointed out, there would be a lot less correlation between #plays and payout.
(To be clear, I have no real opinion on whether this would be a better schema.)