This guy knows his onions.
Get your music onto as many streaming sites as possible if you are an unknown artist.
Shocker - you will still need to promote yourself. The more you can do the better. Find a friend who likes making videos or graphics or whatever and get into a collaborative effort with them - co-promote each other.
I have been amazed by what is possible by the dedication of my friend’s son. He makes rap/drill/rnb music. He and his friend made a video for a track and to date it’s got 3.3M views on YT. He was making several thousand pounds per month for several months via the usual streaming channels, which his Dad managed to get him on through his own distribution channel. This lead to interest from Sony and he eventually sold the rights to the song to one of their subsidiaries for approximately 20 grand.
Do not believe anyone who tells you you cannot make money from streaming.
Who you know, popularity, dedication/effort, skill and luck are all factors in the music biz - probably in that order tbh.
Edit: the kid turned 21 on Friday and already had his first 30k+ earnings from one song, lmao.