Streaming Music Contributed 75% of Total U.S. Music Industry Revenues for 2018

[smirking]

I've heard that from others, too. I've spent way too much time cultivating my music collection.

I’m in the same camp. I own so much music that streaming isn’t such a great value.

 

[Kabeyun]

Pay per month, not per song. This is one of the most honest tagline from Apple.

Sure there’s certain pride for collecting physical music. At some point I did it myself. But I’ve been dissapointed way too many times. Bought a CD album only for 2 or 3 songs I like (the rest is filler garbage). There’s also dirty tricks like double dipping with enhanced, collector edition that comes later with bonus tracks I might love. What a waste of money.

On the other side, you can also never purchase or own your internet, netflix, utilities or cable tv, you can only rent them each month. Doing the same for music isn’t exactly the end of the world. It is already a familiar concept.

I’d rather listen to millions songs I rent, instead of playing 1000 songs I purchased, over and over.

As a bonus, no more double dips or garbage fillers. Any collector edition albums will also be available to stream.

Why does it have to be one or the other? You can instantly access the vast library at Apple Music and purchase whatever individual song you want from the iTunes Store. No need to buy a whole album, digitally or physically (although when I do I often discover a gem or two that the Masses haven’t).

And you’re wrong about owning “netflix.” I own about 2100 films and about 14,000 TV episodes sitting on a NAS and available to me or any of my invitees anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Pretty funny you equate “videos” only with “netflix.”

Also, careful with your analogy to utilities. You’re not renting anything. You do actually own the water or electrons, buying them by the gallon or kWh every month. Put them in containers or batteries and you’ll see exactly what you own. You just (mostly) use them right away. The analogy fails because water and electrons aren’t the same as data because you can’t really reuse them, while data can be reused indefinitely.

My problem is precisely that migration to content streaming perverts content from something ownable to something someone else allows me to view for a fee. And no, it’s not the end of the world when my family and I sit down to watch something only to discover that Netflix removed it from the catalog without asking me first, but it’s irritating as hell.

I own, and will own as long as I possibly can. I also subscribe to Apple Music and Netflix (never bothered with Amazon VOD) because I feel they’re complementary.

 

[btbeme]

Apple is going to stop selling music. Soon. And that will be very sad.

Anyone else like to own, and not rent, their music? I ripped my collection (over 2000 CDs) but held on to them for a few years after. Still don’t like listening to Apple purchases but they will do until I can find the CD and rip a lossless version. But not being able to buy music....that’s gonna be weird.

And I’ll bet you Apple leads the way on this.

 

[long time listener]

I can no longer share, with groups of friends, a mixtape or a cd playlist like I did with past music mediums.
Everyone seems to be on various independent streaming services. Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, Sound Cloud, Bandcamp, YouTube music, Deezer, Amazon Music, Tidal and so forth.
While I appreciate the option of different music services, I wish there was a common way to share music with everyone apart from being in the same room...

 

[Kabeyun]

Apple is going to stop selling music. Soon. And that will be very sad.

Anyone else like to own, and not rent, their music? I ripped my collection (over 2000 CDs) but held on to them for a few years after. Still don’t like listening to Apple purchases but they will do until I can find the CD and rip a lossless version. But not being able to buy music....that’s gonna be weird.

And I’ll bet you Apple leads the way on this.

Yep! And I’ll hold out as long as I can. See above your post.

 

[ksec]

In 2019, I have begun a commitment to owning digital media. So far this has meant digitalizing all of my CD collection, and purchasing with iTunes. Apple Music, to me, is a way to get full song previews (and to be able to access albums that I would not otherwise buy). After realizing that the Disney vault still exists digitally (i.e. currently no Aladdin / Cinderella / etc. available), I have been swiftly beefing up my iTunes Movie / TV Show collections as well. Of course keeping local downloads for everything.

Streaming is great...until it isn't (price increases, increasingly fragmented libraries, availability changes frequently, quality control of titles, etc.)

My fear is that in the future rights holders will only offer via streaming - essentially eliminating any option to purchase/own outright.

This, I often felt the power of Digital Download experience has never been fully developed. Like Full Songs Previews, I could stand in the Store and get a preview of it, why cant I do it on the web. They could have put a Full Song preview with 20 Min each year. I should be able to resell my songs, gifts my songs to friends. Etc.

The UX of Streaming has not been great. Specifically Apple Music. Availability changes frequently bothers me a lot. And I felt I was paying for like good old days video rather than a "Full" music experience.

But then the numbers and data seems to suggest most people don't of any of these as problems.

 

[iSayuSay]

Why does it have to be one or the other? You can instantly access the vast library at Apple Music and purchase whatever individual song you want from the iTunes Store. No need to buy a whole album, digitally or physically (although when I do I often discover a gem or two that the Masses haven’t).

And you’re wrong about owning “netflix.” I own about 2100 films and about 14,000 TV episodes sitting on a NAS and available to me or any of my invitees anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Pretty funny you equate “videos” only with “netflix.”

Also, careful with your analogy to utilities. You’re not renting anything. You do actually own the water or electrons, buying them by the gallon or kWh every month. Put them in containers or batteries and you’ll see exactly what you own. You just (mostly) use them right away. The analogy fails because water and electrons aren’t the same as data because you can’t really reuse them, while data can be reused indefinitely.

My problem is precisely that migration to content streaming perverts content from something ownable to something someone else allows me to view for a fee. And no, it’s not the end of the world when my family and I sit down to watch something only to discover that Netflix removed it from the catalog without asking me first, but it’s irritating as hell.

I own, and will own as long as I possibly can. I also subscribe to Apple Music and Netflix (never bothered with Amazon VOD) because I feel they’re complementary.

Just how many batteries can you buy to store all those electricity? Even then can you sub and unsub your utilities as you wish? You just have to pay what you use every month, sometimes less or more. Maybe you can unsub, but does it worth the hassle to do so every few months?
Internet and phone service is also a good example, how can you store your internet bandwidth? Can you store 100TB of data, or 1000 hours of talk time this month so you may use it later, and not paying your ISP by that time? I don't think so.

I was specifically talking about "physical album" not digital purchase. I don't think you can buy partial cd tracks or upgrade your album to "limited edition". You'd just have to repurchase the repackaged physical album contains 90% of the duplicate you already own. And 10% new content you might love. Been there, wasn't fun. And many artists do that.

Netflix is a service, equates to music streaming services. Yes you can buy your movies anywhere else. 2000 movies, 14K tv shows you risk to lose anytime? Not everyone has the place or resource to keep all those files like you do. Normal people would just pay to enjoy new episodes.

The revenue data shows otherwise. Most people just don't care about "owning" their content anymore. People get bored watching or listening the same content they own. Would you rewatch the same 4K blurays every week? Many would just pay up monthly so they can enjoy new shows. It's pretty normal, I think.

I still buy a few good bluray copies every now and then when it's on sale. I'm talking about 1-3 copies every year, yep it is few and far between. And 90% of my media consumption is rental or subscription.

 

[leekil]

I’m blown away by 75% streaming. I never thought it would be that high. Holy smokes.

Do you mean that you're surprised the revenue percentage is so high, given the minuscule payments per stream?

 

[BuddyTronic]

I can always see it the other way...

That's $7.4 Billion thrown away by music consumers. In the past, we'd buy an LP or CD and own it forever. Over the years if we were enthusiasts, we'd have hundreds of "Albums" we owned forever.

Now with renting streaming music, after a year of listening to music, you own nothing. Zero. And after 5 years, spending all that money on monthly subscriptions, you'd still own nothing.
Renting music via streaming may be convenient and worthwhile in the short run, but in the long run it's definitely a loser. No wonder  is so excited about it.

It’s a personal preference, so there is no wrong way to do it, but I think that maybe it is not important to “own” the music you listen to. The time and resources saved by not having to own discs or even files covers the costs of streaming for life potentially.

My friends has endless bookcases of probably 8000 CD’s. It’s cool and he obviously loves his collection as part of his life, but for myself I go the streaming route and I get more space in the house I guess and I don’t have to put away CD’s and tidy up. Another computer dude has tons of hard drives and hours of work arranging files - for me streaming is good enough most of the time.

Album art is what I miss the most - but there again, that’s a vinyl thing. My buddy with the CD’s has album art, but not as good as the full size LP’s. That was a lot of fun, and you’d listen to the whole album side - another part of the art that is not as prevalent these days maybe.

 

[Mayostudent]

Qobuz with Roon as a front end isn’t bad but I still prefer physical media 75% of the time.

 

[EightyTwenty]

I’m blown away by 75% streaming. I never thought it would be that high. Holy smokes.

Not only is the percentage high, but the overall revenue is insane. The music industry as a whole is seeing double-digit growth for several years now.

Lots of surprises in the music business.

- Streaming being far and away the #1 revenue source.
- Vinyl on the way to possibly overtaking the CD as the #1 physical format.
- The music business growing instead of shrinking.
[doublepost=1551427805][/doublepost]

Do you mean that you're surprised the revenue percentage is so high, given the minuscule payments per stream?

If streaming is now accounting for 75% of record industry revenue, the payments per stream are anything but “minuscule”. They are probably too high, if anything.

 

[Tiger8]

The unfortunate side effect of streaming is that artists are forced to "play to the middle" - trying to create hits that appeal to a broad base and attract plays (since an individual play is near worthless). Amazing singer-songwriters slip through the cracks in this day-and-age. It seems it is happening with movies as well now with the "Netflixication" of the film industry.

I disagree, I would argue that streaming allowed me to discover indie artists traditional media (radio, record stores, and even digital stores) would never give the time of the day to.

That said, I see opportunities for payola just like the good old days of radio, and also sings can disappear; when R Kelly was accused, record labels immediately removed his songs, I don't like the guy, but was surprised that even his duet with Lady Gaga was removed from her album too.

 

[fredrik9]

These new Airpods won't change much... or will they? It isn't really believable that Apple could raise prices based on just Hey Siri and possibly something more. They will still be fundamentally the same.

New iPads are interesting but I guess we'll have to wait until 2020 for Face ID in all iPads or what do you all think?

 

[Remy149]

I can always see it the other way...

That's $7.4 Billion thrown away by music consumers. In the past, we'd buy an LP or CD and own it forever. Over the years if we were enthusiasts, we'd have hundreds of "Albums" we owned forever.

Now with renting streaming music, after a year of listening to music, you own nothing. Zero. And after 5 years, spending all that money on monthly subscriptions, you'd still own nothing.
Renting music via streaming may be convenient and worthwhile in the short run, but in the long run it's definitely a loser. No wonder  is so excited about it.

I have a large collection of cd’s I’ve been accumulating since the early 90’s. While I still buy physical copies of the artists I love. Outside of being on display I haven’t listened to music from them since I ripped my entire library for my first iPod. I love Apple Music especially since it integrates with your existing iTunes library

 

[fredrik9]

It’s a personal preference, so there is no wrong way to do it, but I think that maybe it is not important to “own” the music you listen to. The time and resources saved by not having to own discs or even files covers the costs of streaming for life potentially.

My friends has endless bookcases of probably 8000 CD’s. It’s cool and he obviously loves his collection as part of his life, but for myself I go the streaming route and I get more space in the house I guess and I don’t have to put away CD’s and tidy up. Another computer dude has tons of hard drives and hours of work arranging files - for me streaming is good enough most of the time.

Album art is what I miss the most - but there again, that’s a vinyl thing. My buddy with the CD’s has album art, but not as good as the full size LP’s. That was a lot of fun, and you’d listen to the whole album side - another part of the art that is not as prevalent these days maybe.

I go with streaming too and strive to buy albums I love on vinyl since they are wonderful to listen to and music becomes an experience in a whole other way with vinyl records.

 

[Remy149]

Apple Music reeked havoc with the music that I had ripped from my CD collection which took me a very long time to untangle therefore I use Spotify to stream and iTunes and the music app on my iPhone for music that has been meaningful to me over the years. The streaming services have lots of good music for sure but an album that I love could either not be there at all or be available through streaming one day and be gone the next.

Apple Music integration with my pre-existing library and playlists is one of its bests features. I have several playlists I’ve been listening and updating for years.
[doublepost=1551442945][/doublepost]

I can no longer share, with groups of friends, a mixtape or a cd playlist like I did with past music mediums.
Everyone seems to be on various independent streaming services. Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, Sound Cloud, Bandcamp, YouTube music, Deezer, Amazon Music, Tidal and so forth.
While I appreciate the option of different music services, I wish there was a common way to share music with everyone apart from being in the same room...

Friends and I share playlists through Apple Music constantly. You can even iMessage a link to specific playlists or albums

 

[Mascots]

Isn't this the same sentiment espoused by every previous generation? Talented singer-songwriters always slip through the cracks... always have, always will. Somebody we think undeserving is going to be a star... it's always been that way. Artists make their money touring. Labels get the money, the artists get hosed. I could go on forever, but you get my point. There's really nothing new under the sun.

Not to mention streaming has spread out revenue more evenly for new artists giving them a chance to step up sans a major label by allowing increasing exposure.

Streaming is hardly killing the music industry - it's just allowing the chance for change and giving proper valuation on the price of music, which has been overvalued by the industry for awhile imo.

 

[MacBH928]

The thing I don't like about renting media is that you don't get to keep it. You are tied to an internet connection and an online account, and you never know what changes or what happens if the business goes bust. It has its uses but I am afraid it will kill the physical medium.

Gifting someone a physical book-that means something to both of you- with a hand written dedication on it is not the same as "voucher to download the Great Gatsby from Apple Books".

 

[smirking]

Why does it have to be one or the other?

Although they did say that download purchases fell year over year, I wonder if streaming is directly leeching customers or if the download business is slowly shrinking while streaming is actually picking up most of its customers from radio or elsewhere.

 

[rp2011]

I personally don’t know anyone that actually buys music anymore. I love streaming as I can listen to whatever I want whenever I want I actually consume and try more new music with it being so easy to add to a playlist.

But I do worry about what would happen in the event of an unexpected prolonged internet disturbance. All of it gone.

 

[dstankus]

Pay per month, not per song. This is one of the most honest tagline from Apple.

Sure there’s certain pride for collecting physical music. At some point I did it myself. But I’ve been dissapointed way too many times. Bought a CD album only for 2 or 3 songs I like (the rest is filler garbage). There’s also dirty tricks like double dipping with enhanced, collector edition that comes much later with bonus exclusives I might love, so I'd have to buy the entire album, again? What a waste of money.

On the other side, you can also never purchase or own your internet, netflix, utilities or cable tv, you can only rent them each month. Doing the same for music isn’t exactly the end of the world. It is already a familiar concept.

I’d rather listen to millions songs I rent, instead of playing 1000 songs I purchased, over and over.

As a bonus, no more double dip duplicates or garbage fillers. Any collector edition albums will also be available to stream.

Agree completely with this!

 

[nburwell]

This certainly isn't surprising, but it just shows how far streaming has come over the years. I can't remember the last time I purchased a track/album on iTunes. Nowadays I simply just stream via Spotify.

 

[oneMadRssn]

These numbers are a little scary. It almost seems like one won’t be able to purchase music someday.

Don't worry, there will always be piracy. The most dependable, reliable, resilient, and consistent data distribution system.

 

[Kabeyun]

Just how many batteries can you buy to store all those electricity? Even then can you sub and unsub your utilities as you wish? You just have to pay what you use every month, sometimes less or more. Maybe you can unsub, but does it worth the hassle to do so every few months?
Internet and phone service is also a good example, how can you store your internet bandwidth? Can you store 100TB of data, or 1000 hours of talk time this month so you may use it later, and not paying your ISP by that time? I don't think so.

I was specifically talking about "physical album" not digital purchase. I don't think you can buy partial cd tracks or upgrade your album to "limited edition". You'd just have to repurchase the repackaged physical album contains 90% of the duplicate you already own. And 10% new content you might love. Been there, wasn't fun. And many artists do that.

Netflix is a service, equates to music streaming services. Yes you can buy your movies anywhere else. 2000 movies, 14K tv shows you risk to lose anytime? Not everyone has the place or resource to keep all those files like you do. Normal people would just pay to enjoy new episodes.

The revenue data shows otherwise. Most people just don't care about "owning" their content anymore. People get bored watching or listening the same content they own. Would you rewatch the same 4K blurays every week? Many would just pay up monthly so they can enjoy new shows. It's pretty normal, I think.

I still buy a few good bluray copies every now and then when it's on sale. I'm talking about 1-3 copies every year, yep it is few and far between. And 90% of my media consumption is rental or subscription.

Should probably compare to buying tracks rather than optical, where as you said you can’t buy à la carte. Not saying it’s practical to store water or electricity. Just using that as a thought experiment. I agree that most people stream rather than own. That’s the point of this article and no one disputes that. I just don’t like relying on it. And don’t worry about my losing anything; 30TB in a power-managed RAID will be just fine. And how many movies can you watch in a week? I’m good for maybe two, max, and we have over 2000. I’m in no danger of being bored for years by our collection, which I continue to build. But as I said, I think streaming services are complementary with ownership.

 

[KazKam]

All of you streaming cheerleaders don't see the very big downsides of the streaming model because they haven't really happened... yet.

With the help of Apple and Spotify (and the other "distributors") the media industries are luring you into a model where eventually what/when/how/where/if and for how much you can consume media is entirely at their whim. You're handing over the keys to the castle in the name of immediate convenience, and one day you're going to wake up on a cot sleeping outside the castle.

You're also putting all of your eggs in one giant basket that's suspended by a single gossamer thread (the internet) which is neither as reliable nor as pervasive or guaranteed as we'd all like it to be or think it is.

Streamers, you have been warned.