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Obviously the streaming numbers are minuscule, but if people bought CDs, they can play it unlimited times for a fixed rate. Streaming does substitute with radi

by x0x0 9y ago

Obviously the streaming numbers are minuscule, but if people bought CDs, they can play it unlimited times for a fixed rate. Streaming does substitute with radio and purchased music, but more the latter. Expecting radio rates for something that primarily substitutes for purchased CDs is ludicrous. It would have been more interesting (to me) if the article had compared the youtube/pandora payments with the equivalent CD purchases. Also, this is what google and apple want to do to all of us. Make your complements cheap to enhance your value. Hence the plummeting value of software on their platforms. Apple is busying crying crocodile tears about the difficulty of making a living on the ios platform. They're not gonna care unless and until it damages their platform.

sbuttgereit 9y ago
Your first point regarding how streaming cannibalizes CD I think is pretty spot on. Radio play for record companies and artists was a way to entice listeners to buy the record/cassette/CD/etc. and depending on where you sat in the payout chain, you really didn't expect money from radio... often times you paid to have your record played on radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola ... and there were creative ways around the laws after they were created). But radio didn't play what you wanted when you wanted (that took buying records), radio played what they wanted when they wanted. Streaming upends that. I don't buy records anymore, I pay a streaming subscription. I get pretty much anything I want whenever I want on demand. I have access to a much larger catalog than I would if I bought everything individually and I'm probably spending on-par with what I did in the old days. (I use to get a lot a free CDs and such because I worked for a record store chain in the 90's, but even so, I have access to a larger catalog today). The fact that I can get the vast majority of what I want means that those few hold out artists that I would like to listen to, but can't because they refuse to play the game (with good reason), simply don't get listened to... I have other choices. I can't comment on the other issues you raise.

by x0x0 9y ago

sbuttgereit 9y ago

Your first point regarding how streaming cannibalizes CD I think is pretty spot on. Radio play for record companies and artists was a way to entice listeners to buy the record/cassette/CD/etc. and depending on where you sat in the payout chain, you really didn't expect money from radio... often times you paid to have your record played on radio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola ... and there were creative ways around the laws after they were created). But radio didn't play what you wanted when you wanted (that took buying records), radio played what they wanted when they wanted. Streaming upends that. I don't buy records anymore, I pay a streaming subscription. I get pretty much anything I want whenever I want on demand. I have access to a much larger catalog than I would if I bought everything individually and I'm probably spending on-par with what I did in the old days. (I use to get a lot a free CDs and such because I worked for a record store chain in the 90's, but even so, I have access to a larger catalog today). The fact that I can get the vast majority of what I want means that those few hold out artists that I would like to listen to, but can't because they refuse to play the game (with good reason), simply don't get listened to... I have other choices. I can't comment on the other issues you raise.