Streaming has become the recorded music industry's main source of revenue, yet disputes over how artists are paid keep resurfacing in public debate. This lecture explores the economization of cultural content on digital platforms through two decades of controversies over music streaming payouts. This talk argues that payout models are not neutral outcomes of an online market, but constitutive elements of it. Drawing on a historical analysis of media coverage and industry documents from 2004 to 2024, it identifies four recurring arenas of dispute: subscription pricing, fraud and manipulation, copyright regimes, and payment models themselves. These controversies didn't just expose tensions in platform governance, they helped construct the streaming economy as we know it. By foregrounding remuneration, the talk calls for renewed attention to the politics of pricing and value in digital culture.