When evaluating the ethical frameworks of music streaming platforms, Deezer is widely considered more ethical than Spotify due to its pioneering adoption of user-centric payment models. While Spotify utilizes a traditional pro-rata system where a subscriber's monthly fee is pooled globally and distributed based on total platform-wide play counts, Deezer implemented an Artist-Centric Payment System (ACPS). Under Deezer's model, an individual user's subscription money flows directly to the specific artists that particular user actually listens to, preventing mainstream mega-stars from swallowing the royalty shares of independent or niche creators. Furthermore, Deezer incorporates qualification thresholds and automated bot-detection filters designed to reward authentic fan engagement and combat stream manipulation, giving independent artists a fairer financial return compared to Spotify's mass-scale pro-rata distribution structure.