physical media sales at the very least made sense, I think the percentage is kinda fucked up but at the very least we could all pretty easily see that X amount of sales lead to Y amount of payout for creators.

On the retail end, what you're purchasing is a "license" to the content. So the end user is being told that what they're getting is equivalent to a ticket to the Movie Theater. On the advertising end, what you're purchasing is "views" of the ad media. So the advertiser is being told that what they're getting is equivalent to an individual set of eyeballs for a set amount of time.

So we can quantify the media for the viewer. We can quantify the media for the buyer. I guarantee you that the internal accounting department at the studio is able to quantify the cost of a stream versus the quantity of revenue it brings in.

How is it that the folks producing the media are out in the cold? Its almost as though management is explicitly denying these artists access to the information around their own sales.

Snoop has been in the record and entertainment industry a long time, and I genuinely salute this brotha speaking on this shit. Especially considering the music industries well documented history of raking in zillions of dollars and artists, producers, writers, etc. get like a buck twenty-five for their work (also uniquely bad for black artists) .

He's been on both sides of it. He's seen his forerunners and peers get screwed. He's learned the value of holding your own label and distributing under your own brand. He's also acutely aware of what age and fashion can do to a brand, and how long you have to really cash in on your media before you're no longer at the center of that big engine of commerce. No better source than lived experience, and he's got it in droves.