That’s not how Spotify works, though. According to the link above:
Every time somebody listens to a song on Spotify it generates payments, but Spotify does not calculate royalties based upon a fixed “per play” rate.
Unless there are some secret deals being struck for fixed per-stream royalties that Spotify isn’t admitting to publicly, every rightsholder gets a percentage of monthly revenue. Which sounds fair, until you consider long-tail producers and consumers, for whom the marketplace is distorted by this model.
Your buffet analogy isn’t really apt here because streams aren’t limited resources, and they all have the same effective wholesale cost to Spotify (again, assuming no secret deals).
You're totally right on the merits, but it's worth noting that the big record labels are composed entirely of and built their empire solely upon unjust-seeming secret deals, and we have no reason to believe that they've stopped that modus operandi now merely because they're dealing with Spotify.
Indeed, there were secret deals with record labels in which Spotify gave up 'some amount' of equity to majors in order to be able to stream their catalogs....along with an upfront sum of course.
I think the real problem that isn't being discussed is the fact that on a service such as Spotify it is impossible for an artist to be independent, his/her efforts WILL support majors via their equity in streaming services.
Your buffet analogy isn’t really apt here because streams aren’t limited resources, and they all have the same effective wholesale cost to Spotify (again, assuming no secret deals).