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> That could never change. Trying to revert that situtation was my bet. The 20th century was a golden age for recorded music. Maybe there is no coming back bu

by lelag 4y ago

> That could never change. Trying to revert that situtation was my bet. The 20th century was a golden age for recorded music. Maybe there is no coming back but I don't think (or I didn't think then) that streaming services are in a very strong position in the long run: consumers like them because the current deal is that you pay a single subscription and you have access to basically all the music (a very nice proposition indeed). But the streaming services own no content, the day the content owners find a more lucrative way to sell music they will move part of their catalog out of the streaming services and at the same time, make the product less and less attractive. At least, that was the theory. Now, I think Spotify in particular, has built a strong moat due to their ubiquity (all devices support Spotify). It's getting late for pop music. For Classical, I don't know but 6 years ago, I was convinced there was still a strong possibility to save the old model since it was still making money on the traditional channels. > Streaming will make it worse, though. It has been the case for a while now. Paul Baxter from Delphian Records said it best years ago: "There's no way that a record company could operate on the fees from streaming alone. It's absolutely impossible. There are too many zeros in front of the amount-per-stream figure."

Miraste 4y ago
Spotify's power comes from more than its ubiquity. Pop music, the kind that charts (and the only kind labels care about), is way more commodified than TV shows. If Sony were to make a streaming service with just their music and leave Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon/etc, their artists would simply fail to chart ever again. The advantage of a single streaming service with all the songs is also much greater than one with all the shows or movies. Nobody puts Netflix on "shuffle" or lets it play random episodes based on what they've watched in the past, but those are some of Spotify's biggest features. Its user shareable playlists also increase lock-in, along with other network effects. It's such a huge advantage to be able to play anything (or almost anything), I don't see how a service with a limited selection could compete. I don't see any way for the labels to get out of the streaming age beyond serious anticompetitive collusion, and even then people would go back to piracy. Frankly, it couldn't happen to a nicer group of folks.
- lelag 4y ago
  I mostly agree with you there. If you look at pop music as a whole, it's impossible to attack them directly. But I don't think that the moat could never be broken. You have many people that consume music as background noises. But you also have many people that are passionate about the music they listen to and would like to have another way to support their artist of choices other than going to concerts (see vinyl revival etc). My recipe to break the moat: - choose a genre some people care strongly about (for me, that was classical) - make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like) - progressively signup labels by showing there is more money on your platform than on streaming services, they will progressively remove more and more of their catalog from streaming services if they were on them. - once the model is proven on that genre, move to another (jazz, serious pop etc) - as time goes by, the value of your service increase and while the value of the streaming services is lowered due to their catalog shrinking. While this might be a fantasy, the truth is that today system continue to reward popular artists only, niche genre artists can't make a living from streaming. If a solution arises for them, they will come progressively, and over time it will weaken the streaming service moat.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    > make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like) Why would consumers not just pay for physical media like CDs/Vinyl/etc. if they prefer owning things?
- pwinnski 4y ago
  I also lack the vision to see what could ultimately replace streaming as the primary delivery mechanism for music. It delivers an ongoing revenue stream, the monthly nature of which beats the old "put it out in a new format every few years so everyone has to rebuy everything" in terms of cash flow, although obviously not in overall revenue. I could definitely see streaming wars in music happening like they are in video, although so far the music labels are content to watch the video labels hurt each other. But consider: Spotify's payouts are infamously low, lower than Google's or Apple's and I can imagine some labels deciding they can do better by providing their own streaming app. Since it's only a few labels, each will believe they have enough of a library to draw subscribers, and away we'll go. But still: aside from the margins and market share concerns, what delivers a steadier income than streaming? Streaming doesn't mean they can't experiment with additional revenue streams, including physical media sales and licensing opportunities, but it's hard to imagine something displacing streaming as a concept to the degree which streaming has displaced physical media sales.
EricE 4y ago
>The 20th century was a golden age for recorded music. Maybe there is no coming back With AI generated music on the horizon I think we have definitely peaked.
- sammalloy 4y ago
  That’s been said about almost every style and genre of art. What’s so funny, is that it’s never happened; quite the opposite. Look at the renaissance of early music, as only one example. Sadly, 99% of all music that has ever been made was not written down or recorded. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to hunt down and discover lost, unrecognized, or forgotten music and bring it back to forefront. I was just listening to Indian classical bansuri (bamboo flute) music by Ronu Majumdar and Ajeet Pathak on Naxos. The album features 12th century ragas in the Hindustani tradition. What’s amazing about it, is you can hear how this style greatly influenced rock and roll from the mid-1960s to the mid 1970s, particularly the long and winding guitar solos that were famous during that era. And if you read about that time, it turns out that rock musicians were indeed listening to this music and getting ideas from it. There isn’t any AI around that is going to make deep connections like this. We are still very much in human-driven territory. What will certainly become common, however, is for human musicians to augment their compositional skills with the help of AI, not to replace it altogether.

by lelag 4y ago

Miraste 4y ago

Spotify's power comes from more than its ubiquity. Pop music, the kind that charts (and the only kind labels care about), is way more commodified than TV shows. If Sony were to make a streaming service with just their music and leave Spotify/Apple Music/Amazon/etc, their artists would simply fail to chart ever again. The advantage of a single streaming service with all the songs is also much greater than one with all the shows or movies. Nobody puts Netflix on "shuffle" or lets it play random episodes based on what they've watched in the past, but those are some of Spotify's biggest features. Its user shareable playlists also increase lock-in, along with other network effects. It's such a huge advantage to be able to play anything (or almost anything), I don't see how a service with a limited selection could compete. I don't see any way for the labels to get out of the streaming age beyond serious anticompetitive collusion, and even then people would go back to piracy. Frankly, it couldn't happen to a nicer group of folks.

lelag 4y ago
I mostly agree with you there. If you look at pop music as a whole, it's impossible to attack them directly. But I don't think that the moat could never be broken. You have many people that consume music as background noises. But you also have many people that are passionate about the music they listen to and would like to have another way to support their artist of choices other than going to concerts (see vinyl revival etc). My recipe to break the moat: - choose a genre some people care strongly about (for me, that was classical) - make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like) - progressively signup labels by showing there is more money on your platform than on streaming services, they will progressively remove more and more of their catalog from streaming services if they were on them. - once the model is proven on that genre, move to another (jazz, serious pop etc) - as time goes by, the value of your service increase and while the value of the streaming services is lowered due to their catalog shrinking. While this might be a fantasy, the truth is that today system continue to reward popular artists only, niche genre artists can't make a living from streaming. If a solution arises for them, they will come progressively, and over time it will weaken the streaming service moat.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  > make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like) Why would consumers not just pay for physical media like CDs/Vinyl/etc. if they prefer owning things?
pwinnski 4y ago
I also lack the vision to see what could ultimately replace streaming as the primary delivery mechanism for music. It delivers an ongoing revenue stream, the monthly nature of which beats the old "put it out in a new format every few years so everyone has to rebuy everything" in terms of cash flow, although obviously not in overall revenue. I could definitely see streaming wars in music happening like they are in video, although so far the music labels are content to watch the video labels hurt each other. But consider: Spotify's payouts are infamously low, lower than Google's or Apple's and I can imagine some labels deciding they can do better by providing their own streaming app. Since it's only a few labels, each will believe they have enough of a library to draw subscribers, and away we'll go. But still: aside from the margins and market share concerns, what delivers a steadier income than streaming? Streaming doesn't mean they can't experiment with additional revenue streams, including physical media sales and licensing opportunities, but it's hard to imagine something displacing streaming as a concept to the degree which streaming has displaced physical media sales.

EricE 4y ago

>The 20th century was a golden age for recorded music. Maybe there is no coming back With AI generated music on the horizon I think we have definitely peaked.

sammalloy 4y ago
That’s been said about almost every style and genre of art. What’s so funny, is that it’s never happened; quite the opposite. Look at the renaissance of early music, as only one example. Sadly, 99% of all music that has ever been made was not written down or recorded. I think there’s a lot of opportunities to hunt down and discover lost, unrecognized, or forgotten music and bring it back to forefront. I was just listening to Indian classical bansuri (bamboo flute) music by Ronu Majumdar and Ajeet Pathak on Naxos. The album features 12th century ragas in the Hindustani tradition. What’s amazing about it, is you can hear how this style greatly influenced rock and roll from the mid-1960s to the mid 1970s, particularly the long and winding guitar solos that were famous during that era. And if you read about that time, it turns out that rock musicians were indeed listening to this music and getting ideas from it. There isn’t any AI around that is going to make deep connections like this. We are still very much in human-driven territory. What will certainly become common, however, is for human musicians to augment their compositional skills with the help of AI, not to replace it altogether.