Streaming Economy: Defaults & Alternatives

In other words, streaming is a lot more profitable for all the actual value creators after we bypass these technopolies.

Streaming was really revolutionary and wonderful for a lot of people, but it was really devastating for a lot of other people because everything had to have the same economic logic as pop music.

And a lot of experimental music doesn’t follow that per play valuation logic. A lot of experimental music is about the idea, and you just need access to tha... See more

The music livestreaming economy undeniably favors independent artists — but it’s really challenging to make a sustainable living from livestreaming, with a power law that still sees the top 1% commanding the majority of revenue.

Take the music industry, for example. From Napster to the iTunes Music Store and now Spotify, the last two decades look a lot like an exercise in how to use internet platforms to effectively deny income to musicians while extracting maximum value in content and data.