Hey Mike, I hear you...my partner and I spent thousands of dollars trying "traditional" music marketing tactics - fliers, ads in the LA Weekly, and all of the normal social media that bands use now. What I am sure you know is that nothing sells an artist more than hearing their music and deciding for yourself if you like it. If a good artists gets into rotation enough on radio, they will build a fan base. We can play a band to a targeted user for $0.01 and that's plenty for what we need to operate. That's 1/15th the cost of a flier. We're so committed to treating artists right that, if that user skips you in the first 30 seconds, you're not charged.
And in terms of the quality, we also don't sell pipe dreams to bands who will not benefit. We focus just as much on listeners as bands. Fire up a channel. You may not like everything you hear, but there is no "crappy music" on Earbits.
I find trying to wring cash out of, what are likely, struggling indie artists sucks.
As a consumer I do not want crappy music by the bands that paid the most in my stream.