Anyone can have their music put on Spotify for a payment of around £30, you don't have to be a "mega music corporation" or even signed to a label. The fact that Spotify pays risible rates to artists is a fair point but a seperate issue.

Artists accept that they get almost nothing in return because Spotify is a good way to publicise their music and hopefully, get people to pay for it later. If you genuinely can't afford to buy music, you can continue to listen to it for free on Spotify- at least the artist will recieve their pittance. If you are going to the trouble of downloading if off Spotify, you really ought to buy it.

I couldn't care less if you're illegally downloading the Rolling Stones or Radiohead, but I thought this site was focussed on folk and trad music where we are largely talking about a scene where even the most well known artists are probably only just scraping by.