How Much Are Your Favorite Bands Making?

We keep hearing about the future of the music industry: how the current business model is failing, how piracy has destroyed the business, how bands and labels need to find new ways of distributing music and generating income. It's usually a bunch of empty, circular talking points that never really come up with solutions.

But they finally thought they'd figured it out with online streaming. Hey, why would people bother downloading songs when they can stream their favorite radio stations or stations tailored to their tastes online? Plus, then artists can get paid through royalties! Right?

Right?

Well, maybe not. Many musicians are claiming that the royalty checks they're receiving from Spotify and Pandora are for such insignificant sums of money that they don't even bother cashing them.

As the World's Most Frugal Human, I take this as an affront to not only me, but also my entire scope of life, but I suppose it's their prerogative.