It was announced recently that Spotify is the first streaming service to hit 100 million subscribers. This is the number of subscribers that would make you think that this streaming service has probably made a profit since for a while we’ve known that streaming services have struggled to pay their artist. Yet, this vastly popular streaming service is still struggling to bring in any profit to benefit the company.
The origin of the streaming service brought upon the death of Limewire and Napster. We all remember those days downloading music and burning CDs, or at one point downloading it to our iPods. Those were the good old days.
Streaming services have brought advantages and a new way to enjoy music in such a convenient way. We literally have a library of most of the music that is out in the world at the tip of our fingers. Developers have developed ways to curate algorithms that show you music similar to what you listen to already to help you discover new music every so often. It seems like the perfect way to experience listening to music.
Despite these amazing things that come with music streaming services, these services do have to face challenges when it comes to bringing in profit for the company but, also the artist themselves. We have seen in the past artist pull themselves from participating in having their music streamed because of how it won’t bring any income in.
Spotify is in the spotlight due to Amazon and Google launching a free tier where their users can listen to music for free with ads in the mix according to Rolling Stone. With both Amazon and Google having some of the biggest at home devices available in the market.
According to to the consumer research group CIRP, 66 million smart speakers were installed in homes in the U.S in February of this year. They are gearing up to compete with Spotify.
In my opinion though, Spotify still holds this reign in the streaming service world because of the features and how well music is curated for listeners. According to Rolling Stone, devices cannot take the request of playing a specific song but it accepts a more general radio station to be played so there is that disadvantage of just having to deal with faulty technology. Nonetheless, though Spotify does face some difficulties now they have several more competitors in the game now.
Free music is an ongoing debate and the major record companies are not fans of free music even being a thing. Some argue that it devalues the artist’s work. What do you guys think about music streaming services? Like them or nah?
