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Feb 6 2023

🔵 Let's fix streaming. And can someone buy us an Endlesss beat arcade machine pls?

The latest news from the music and tech industries
Hi there -

The last few issues of the Digest have focused on the suggested new models around streaming that various sites have shared.

Today, it is very welcome to see Midia's Mark Mulligan post his thoughts, which I'd argue make for a suitably balanced and objective take from perhaps a step or two further back than most.

Mulligan's main point is that if we really want to increase what artists make from the consumption of their music, we need to be growing the overall pie, rather than just figuring out how slice the existing pie up differently. This tallies with my own observation last week that every proposed new model seemed to just have a different set of winners and losers.

One part caught my eye though: the reference to a pay-per-stream model. So rather than your DSP account being an all-you-can-eat for 9.99 per month, it might instead provide you 999 streams at 0.01 per stream (currency signs deliberately ignored for now).

This brought to mind Psonar, a streaming service MU briefly worked with back in 2017 - and something I've touched on once or twice in the past (one example being this Digest intro from 2021).

Psonar was precisely that per-stream model, and IMO it made a huge amount of sense, not least because it billed via mobile contracts making it highly accessible to younger people too.

Why didn't Psonar work? I'd imagine more than one cause played its part, but I always had the impression that the sums demanded by the majors to get access to their catalogue wasn't a help. If you are launching any service with millions in debt just to license catalogue, you're on the back foot from the start.

My point? Mainly that I still feel the reason Psonar died was because the majors simply wouldn't entertain models that were not the 9.99 all-you-can-eat one.

In 2023, albeit with streaming absolutely in place as the dominant model, I cannot help but wonder if that failure to embrace alternative models might have been myopic.

All that said, I do also agree with Mulligan's view that "perhaps it is time to double down on building new things on top of and around streaming, and nurture those that already exist (Bandcamp, etc.)."

Amen to that. I know I keep labouring the point, but I feel the music industry needs to get a lot more entrepreneurial. Nobody owes us a living, and times are changing rapidly. Any failure to keep up with that might cost us dear, so we should be focusing on collaboration to explore new models. Lean in and work together to overcome the obstacles!

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 written whilst revisiting The Future Sound of London's "Lifeforms" double album. Today's been a crazy one so frankly some fairly chilled ambient vibes were the only way to go. Still a gem - enjoy!
Stories from the Music Industry:
Everyone hurts the problem with fixing streaming
Another approach would be a fixed stream rate, which would effectively mean metered streaming. For example, if every stream generated $0.01, a subscriber would be able to listen until their subscription fee was used up, with the ability to top up to listen further or upgrade to a higher capacity tier. This would certainly help drive increased ARPU (something all parties want) but could deter some subscribers as it would mean an end to the all-you-can-eat (AYCE) proposition. But maybe it is time for that. Music is not a scalable resource in the way that, say, mobile data is.

👆🏻Hot take: a welcome, slightly more distanced and objective take on the current issues around streaming and remuneration. 
"The whole thing is incredibly tough. Theres no reason why if I can go online and buy a car and have it delivered to my house, why cant a buy a fucking ticket at the price that the artist wants it to be? So its that simple. And you know the reason why. Its not cause of artists. So the one thing that I would say while holding a microphone is everybodys got to chill on the artists. Because everyones trying to figure it out. We know whos making it impossible."

👆🏻Hot take: a lot of common sense being spoken here from Antonoff - and not just about ticketing. 
Songwriters, who already feel they are being fleeced, belittled and erased in the digital age, might argue that AI music is not just taking food off their table, its taking the crumbs. And setting fire to the table. Its the thin end of a miserable wedge for them. But AI is not replacing them. It is (or it should) only be used to put up temporary aural wallpaper that is not dependent on skill, craft or art. No songwriter worth their salt would want to create music devoid of these attributes.

👆🏻Hot take: another good thought piece from Eamonn Forde. I agree with the sentiments. 
But the story of BMG and Freeze Corleone raises questions about why BMG executives had signed him in the first place while going to great lengths to conceal the relationship. And it offers an object lesson in the temptations and risks corporations face when they seek to capitalize on the notoriety of pop-culture figures.

👆🏻Hot take: a grim read that certainly doesn't reflect well on BMG as a business. One cannot help but read it as a "sorry we got caught" scenario more so than a "sorry we signed a racist rapper" one. 
Stories from the Broader World of Tech:
Metas Reality Labs lost $13.7 billion on VR and AR last year
Starting in 2021, Meta began breaking out its Reality Labs VR and AR division into its own segment for financial reporting purposes. That makes it possible to see just how much Meta is pouring into those areas, and the numbers are staggering. Meta reported $13.7 billion in operating losses for Reality Labs for 2022, more than the already jaw-dropping $10.2 billion it sunk into the division in 2021. Reality Labs brought in $2.16 billion last year in revenue, a drop from $2.27 billion in 2021.

👆🏻Hot take: I cannot help but view Meta as a kind of trustafarian just happily blasting through money like it means nothing. These numbers are mortifying. 
Pichais comments about the possible ChatGPT rival come as a report revealed this week that Microsoft is working to incorporate a faster version of ChatGPT, known as GPT-4, into Bing, in a move that would make its search engine, which today has only a sliver of search market share, more competitive with Google. The popularity of ChatGPT has seen Google reportedly turning to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for help in combating the potential threat.

👆🏻Hot take: further proof that Google is genuinely shaken by the arrival of ChatGPT. Also arguable proof as to how smart Microsoft's investments have proved to be in recent years. 
“The idea of foreign ownership as being the critical basis for intervention [on TikTok] seems unwise,” says Chander. “We should have a broader approach that examines the national security risks posed by data flows more generally.” He’s not alone in hoping the TikTok debate might spur progress on the establishment of national data privacy legislation that would protect American consumers on all apps, not just TikTok.

👆🏻Hot take: a fine point is made here, namely that hopefully the TikTok debate might spur on the wider need for better data management and privacy. 
Other Reads I've Enjoyed Lately:
Why Does It Feel Like Amazon Is Making Itself Worse?
The “everything store” has gotten junkier and more chaotic. But, for the company, it’s only good business.

👆🏻Hot take: consider this a part two on the whole "enshittification" issue I've included before now. 
Quicksand's classic, massively influential debut LP Slip turns 30 next week (2/9), and to celebrate, it's getting a 30th anniversary reissue via Iodine Recordings.

👆🏻Hot take: delighted to see this gem of an album getting the reissue treatment. Also love to see how influential it was. 
What I’ve learned on the journey to happiness.

👆🏻Hot take: I tend to wince at article headlines like this, but this one is actually a pretty solid, grounding reminder of what's worth worrying about. 
File under "OMG WE WANT ONE":
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