The only artists that benefit from Spotify are the top of the top, as in Beyoncé/Lady Gaga level.

I always suspected that the falloff is pretty steep as soon as you step away from let's say the top n artists at a time.

This confirms this suspicion again.

I'd go as far as say that piracy is much better for artists due to the lack of dark patterns (which funnel more people to fewer artists). And once you visit a show or buy a piece of merch you have given an artist more money than Spotify listening alone ever would have, and it is not even close.