I remember a (deleted) tweet from the rapper Nipsey Hussle where he posted his payout breakdown. It's been reblogged since deletion and is preserved:

>ATTENTION EVERYONE: > >1 Million Streams on YouTube = $690 > >1 Million Streams on Spotify = $4,370 > >1 Million Streams on Apple Music = $7,350 > >1 Million Streams on @Tidal = $12,500 > >1 Million Streams on Amazon Music = $4,020 > >Don’t shoot the messenger. >Jus Sign up 4 @tidal > >— THA GREAT (@NipseyHussle) January 15, 2018

The only thing about payout $ is that you have to take into account how many streams you actually get on each service. Are we to believe that Tidal's payouts would stay they same if they had Spotify's much greater listenership? Or Apple for that matter? Streaming services pay the rates charged to them by the record companies based on myriad listenership demographics.

I believe the labels are charging the services, and those labels pay the artist. Am I wrong on that? The labels set the price to be paid, don't they?

Tidal apparently inflated the play numbers of their owners - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17028313.