Sevdaliza might have more than 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify, but that doesn’t mean much when it comes to making ends meet. The Iranian-Dutch artist has made waves in the electronic-pop sphere with her experimental music, but that seemingly amounts to a drop in the bucket when it comes to her bank account.

“I have been an independent artist for 12 years releasing music, I’ve built everything including a fanbase without majors, and I still can’t afford to take a week off,” tweeted Sevdaliza, adding that on average, one million streams amounts to an artist being paid $2,500. “Deduct taxes, management and cost of product. How are we expected to ever make music sustainable?” wondered the artist who once collaborated with Grimes.

Sevdaliza’s message was a response to a viral post from another artist, James Blake, regarding the streaming system. 

“If we want quality music somebody is gonna have to pay for it,” he said, explaining the waning options for making money. “Streaming services don’t pay properly, labels want a bigger cut than ever and just sit and wait for you to go viral, TikTok doesn’t pay properly, and touring is getting prohibitively expensive for most artists.” 

How much does Spotify pay per stream?

Indeed, streaming has overtaken the music industry—Spotify reported record growth, adding 31 million premium subscribers last year. Much like how royalties checks for actors are slimmer for a Netflix show than a cable one, payouts from these music streaming services don’t have the same impact that physical albums once did. Artist Zoë Keating shared with Business Insider in 2020 that for her, a single stream from Apple Music accounted for $0.012; on Spotify, she’d receive just $0.003 after distributor fees. 

No one said making it big was easy, but it seems all the more impossible these days for independent artists to catch a break. The streaming era has made the process all the more grueling as independent artists struggle to make a living in an especially volatile economy. 

“If we got paid a meaningful income from streaming, that could be a weekly grocery shop; it could contribute to your rent or your mortgage when you need it the most,” artist Nadine Shah told the New York Times. “That’s why I felt compelled to talk about it. I saw so many artists struggling.” Of course, the creator economy can make it even more difficult to become a star amongst all the short-form competition out there.

Responding to James Blake’s post, Lauren Jauregui (who rose to fame as a member of Fifth Harmony) says that amongst her artist friends, “everyone feels like we have no right to get paid for our work.” Claiming that music is the only industry that’s like this, Jauregui adds that people “conflate popularity or follower count with ‘success’ [so] they can’t conceptualize how extractive and abusive these systems are to us.” In response, Sevdaliza said she was looking to combat the exploitation by potentially “starting a music artist union, that solely advocates for the rights of musicians.”

How much do independent artists make on Spotify?

Spotify told Fortune that independent artists accounted for the almost half of what the entire industry generated on the platform for the first time ever during 2023. The many indie musicians made almost $4.5 billion this past year, per a spokesperson.

As it stands, being an artist isn’t tenable, as Sevdaliza describes it. “I have to sacrifice my health and can’t be a present mother, because of our business model,” the artist says. “The thing is, if you want to make it in music, you can’t stop. I love music so much, and I don’t ever want to give up but we don’t get paid for our art. It doesn’t make any sense.”

A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com on March 6, 2024.

More on streaming:

• Netflix is making a Willy Wonka reality/competition show
• Sonos stumbles again, reportedly scrapping its long-awaited device for streaming video
• Netflix Las Vegas restaurant serves ‘Squid Game’ cocktails and a ‘Bridgerton’ tea

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

George Foreman, the two-time heavyweight boxing champion who lost to Muhammad Ali in the 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” and later became a successful entrepreneur, has died. He was 76.

Foreman died on March 21 surrounded by loved ones, according to a post on his Instagram account, calling him “a devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather.”

“He lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose,” the post said. “He was deeply respected — a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name — for his family.”

George Edward Foreman was born on Jan. 10, 1949, in Marshall, Texas. He was a “rebellious teen” who bullied younger children and became a mugger and brawler by the age of 15, according to his website, before finding boxing as an outlet while in the Job Corps., a program that offered vocational training for disadvantaged youth.

At 19, he won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, and turned professional the following year.

“After I won the Gold Medal, I went to the White House to present President Lyndon Johnson with a plaque as a way of thanking him for creating the Job Corps,” Foreman said on his website.

In 1973, Foreman won his first heavyweight champion title by knocking out Joe Frazier in two rounds. 

A year later, Ali beat Foreman with an eighth-round knockout in Kinshasa, the capital of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ali used the “rope-a-dope,” a strategy of standing against the ropes and letting Foreman punch himself into exhaustion.

Foreman retired in 1977 following a bout with Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico.

“In his locker room after the match, George had a deeply religious experience that changed his life forever,” according to his website. He later became an ordained minister. 

In By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman, he wrote that he tapped his retirement funds to form a charitable foundation that set up the George Foreman Youth and Community Center in Houston.

A decade after stepping away, Foreman returned to the ring and embarked on one of the most successful sports comebacks.

In November 1994, about two months shy of turning 46, Foreman won the heavyweight title again by defeating Michael Moorer and became the oldest person to be awarded the belt. He retired for the second time in 1997.

Former Boxing Champ Tommy Morrison, Who Beat Foreman, Dies at 44

Foreman had five sons and seven daughters, according to People magazine.

“I named all my sons George Edward Foreman so they would always have something in common,” he said on his website.

Foreman discovered his talent for selling when he was making his comeback, he told Bloomberg Businessweek in a 2004 feature. Relegated to fighting second-rate fighters in tiny towns, he was asked to tape a 10-second promotion for a local TV station in Florida. He grabbed the microphone, he recalled in the article, and screamed: “I’m going to show the whole world that age 40 is not a death sentence! Watch me!” The fight sold out in seconds. 

By the end of the 1990s, Foreman was making millions from appearances in infomercials selling the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine. His website says more than 100 million units of the electrical appliance have been sold worldwide, and the franchise had reportedly earned the former boxer more than $200 million.

“I did not invent the grill,” he said of the venture. “We made it a better looking piece of furniture.”

In 2002, Foreman was in Memphis and ran into a group of preschoolers on the street, he told Bloomberg Businessweek. Their teacher explained to the children that Foreman had won the gold medal in heavyweight boxing at the 1968 Olympic Games. One little boy refused to believe it. “That’s the cooking man!” shouted the tot, referring to the promotions of his grill. 

“They don’t even know me as the champion anymore,” Foreman said, laughing at the memory.

Tributes have poured in from athletes including boxer Mike Tyson and basketball’s Scottie Pippen.

“His contribution to boxing and beyond will never be forgotten,” Tyson said on X.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Veronica Taylor doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use the internet.

The 73-year-old can’t drive and is mostly housebound in her mountainous and remote West Virginia community, where a simple trip to the grocery store can take an hour by car.

New requirements that Social Security recipients access key benefits online or in person at a field office, rather than on the phone, would be nearly impossible to meet without help.

“If that’s the only way I had to do it, how would I do it?” Taylor said, talking about the changes while eating a plate of green beans, mac and cheese and fried fish with a group of retirees at the McDowell County Senior Center. “I would never get nothing done.”

The requirements, set to go into effect March 31, are intended to streamline processes and combat widespread fraud within the system, according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration.

They say that’s why it’s vital for people to verify their identity online or in person when signing up for benefits, or making a change like where the money is deposited.

But advocates say the changes will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Americans. It will be harder to visit field offices in rural areas with high poverty rates. Often these are the same areas that lack widespread internet service.

Many Social Security field offices are also being shut down, part of the federal government’s cost-cutting efforts. That could mean seniors have to travel even farther to visit, including in parts of rural West Virginia.

Donald Reed, who runs a local nonprofit that operates two senior centers, said he has serious concerns about the policy change, and how it’ll affect the people his group serves.

“I’m not anti-Trump — let me say that,” he said. “I think the general public greatly supports looking for waste in government. I do not think the general public understands the consequences of the current actions of the government.”

Poor, rural areas could be hardest hit

One in three people live in poverty in McDowell County, once one of the nation’s largest coal producers. Around 30% of the population receives Social Security benefits and 20% lack broadband access. People already face huge challenges in accessing basic needs like food and clothing.

Non-profit groups like The Commission on Aging receive money from the federal government to provide rides to the grocery store, medical appointments and free lunch at the county senior center, and could in theory add a stop to the local Social Security office said Reed, who is the group’s director.

But the transportation grant money is already not enough to meet the need. Last year, Reed ran out of money during the last three months of the fiscal year and had to dip into the Commission’s savings. This year, he said he won’t be able to do so.

Then, last Friday, he found out the Commission had lost an almost $1 million grant he expected, again because of the federal government’s cost cutting.

He had planned to use the money to rebuild one of the two county senior centers, an aging 1980s-era doublewide trailer with limited seating.

“Once the money’s gone, you know, the money’s gone,” he said.

A flurry of new rules, hard for seniors to follow

Seniors at the center gather each weekday for lunch. Usually, they might play bingo or cards. On this day, because of the presence of a reporter from The Associated Press, the conversation turned to politics.

Many are Trump supporters. Every county in West Virginia supported Trump in three presidential elections.

Yet all agreed that the recent flurry of executive orders had been difficult to follow, especially since the county’s last local newspaper shuttered, and they weren’t sure what effect they’d have on their lives.

“I don’t understand a lot of the stuff that’s going on right now, and I just can’t pinpoint things together, you know,” said Brenda Hughes, 72, who said she usually goes to the Social Security office in person anyway because she said she’s found it difficult to get a hold of the call center. “But maybe it’s meant to be like that.”

Mary Weaver, 72, said she doesn’t approve of Trump giving Elon Musk so much leeway to cut and change services, and she doesn’t see those measures helping McDowell County.

“He gone run for president, and he’s going to get the presidency, but he’s going to let someone else tell him how to run the country?” she asked, criticizing Trump’s relationship with Musk.

Other residents aren’t concerned. Barbara Lester, 64, said she wishes she could sit down with Trump and Musk and tell them they’re doing a fantastic job.

“And with all the money they’re saving from the fraud, they could afford to give their senior citizens an increase,” said Lester, who is retired from construction work.

But for Taylor, who depends on rides from the aging commission for most of her outings, the changes to Social Security may be just one more thing that will be difficult.

There are already many places she wants to go and can’t get to. None of her grandkids live nearby, her daughter lives in Roanoke, Virginia, and her 39-year-old son, who used to live in the Welch area near her, died. The walk from her house to the Social Security office is six miles.

“If I ask people more than two times to take me somewhere, it’s like begging. And I don’t beg nobody to do nothing for me,” she said. “I’m independent like that. I don’t beg nobody for nothing.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com