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The Diffusion of Music Streaming

 

Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash

 

For the last hundred or so years, give or take, $10 has just about always bought a single album. $10 vinyl records, $10 cassette tapes, and though CDs became a bit more expensive, iTunes eventually returned to a $10 average offering for their novel service. Now, for the same price, I get access to just about every song ever published, whenever I want. How did we get here?

 

When Spotify first arrived on the scene offering a service to stream your favorite songs from the internet, it felt like a weird, impractical way to pay for your music. I have to keep paying? And never actually own it? Yeah, I think I’ll pass. And I wasn’t alone – it took Spotify more than two years after launch to convince any A series investors that the music business could be fruitful.

 

However, being the grubby little new-tech-lover I was, it wasn’t long before I found myself asking for a Spotify subscription for Christmas. Once I adopted it – and before the advent of competitors like Apple Music – I remember having to actively convince friends and family to give streaming their music a shot. “I can find all kinds of new music,” I would tell them, “Look at the social features!” At that point, I only knew a handful of other users, but people were starting to take interest. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was an early adopter, actively advocating for the platform to the extent that Spotify themselves took notice, inviting me to their “Rock Star Program” (too much free time on my hands, I suppose).

 

Before long, I was calling it the “Spotify revolution,” labeling Apple Music-users blasphemers by association. Friends were increasingly opting to stream their music, though with the new wave of adopters being largely limited to younger folk, the app’s “diffusion” was still in its relative infancy compared to today. Nevertheless, this was without a doubt the “early majority” of users.

 

Image courtesy of the Military Families Learning Network.

 

In recent years, however, I’ve seen what I believe to be the 4th wave of late adopters. Groups like my parents and teachers have started to migrate over to streaming, though I’d say we’re still very much still in the midst of experiencing the shift. 

 

I believe we are nearing the plateau of innovation for music streaming. Spotify is now available in most countries across the world and the vast majority of modern devices. While I don’t see my grandparents joining Spotify anytime soon, music streaming has become mainstream enough that it’s spreading without needing to advertise to new customers. 

 

Really the only remaining question is where the industry goes from this point. Although the service has found explosive levels of success in recent years, each headline seems to bring more and more heat to the company, especially when it comes to properly compensating the artists. It’s entirely possible that – with the proper social awareness and lobbying – streaming services may be forced to rework their model. For now, however, the new way of listening has taken the world by storm, with no signs of slowing.

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