Premium Music Services - What’s The Future?
Is traditional music dying?
Do you happen to be someone who purchases music? If that’s the case, how do you envision the future of paid music? We've certainly gone a long way in terms of music purchasing: there was a period when people used to listen to audio cassettes, then CDs and downloads. As technology progresses, new ways for people to listen to and buy music become accessible, however, what does the future hold?
Streaming
Streaming has quickly become a very popular method of listening to songs. When you join up for a streaming platform, you pay to listen to a massive repertoire of albums and singles from many of the world's top musicians as well as many artists who haven't quite reached it yet. It's amazing because once you pay, you not only get to listen to your favorite musicians, but you also get to find new ones that you would not have heard under different circumstances.
In the United States, there were more than 164 billion streams in 2014, while the same for 2015 was 317 billion - the industry has seen almost 100% growth. Furthermore, many prefer not to have to save hundreds of music on their laptops and PCs due to the fact that it takes up a lot of memory space.
The music industry is booming
The issue with streaming is that the sector is already oversaturated. Therefore, not all participants are happy about this fact. Many musicians and nearly all labels continue to decry streaming's growing dominance, even as it drives profits increasingly higher. Currently, Spotify is the platform that can be considered one of the most popular apps used by millions of people every day. However, there are plenty of others, including Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play Music, etc. It's only a matter of time until mergers occur and streaming services begin crumbling because they simply cannot compete with their far more popular competitors - We can’t use dozens of apps at the same time, right?
The price
The platforms we have mentioned above do not come for free. Streaming has grabbed a significant portion of music revenues, and when you think about it, even the most costly streaming services are amazingly fantastic value for the money considering what you can get. For example, you might pay a fixed charge and listen to hundreds of albums - this may come out to less than 1 cent every record listened to. It's just a matter of time until prices rise because these businesses provide insanely good value for money and could afford to make a lot more.
How do we choose?
Streaming providers have already begun to prioritize offering customers what they want. And that’s pretty natural considering the demand. For instance, If you don’t like a specific artist, you can simply click a specific button and after that, you are not going to see that artist or any of their songs appear on your screen. On the other hand, if you listen to a certain artist frequently, you will see their songs and albums appear often - pretty simple. Streaming providers will almost certainly adapt your experience to your demands even more by increasing their personalization tools and attempting to anticipate what music and artists you'll like. All in all, it will not be a case of you looking for music, like it used to be in the past. From now on, it is going to be a case of the music looking for you. That sounds pretty exciting.
All in all, it is pretty clear to see that the transition from analog to digital changed the industry completely. Artists increasingly market their albums, tours, and other creative efforts through customized streaming services along with social media. It just takes a few minutes for successful singers' breaking news to spread since they've cultivated a core group of followers who will do a lot of the promoting for them.
Physical media, such as CDs, will always have a market, and digital music is also fairly popular, but both will likely grow less popular as streaming continues to become the primary means by which consumers acquire music.
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