INTRODUCTION

CONCLUSION

GIF: https://medium.com/@savannahtykledoux/how-social-media-is-killing-the-music-industry-e6fea4cc6e30

The massive push toward digital media has greatly impacted how the music industry creates, promotes, and distributes, and how we consumers interact with each step of the process. Streaming services steadily balance between being very user-friendly and artist-crushing. The ease of access, unlimited catalog, and ad-free listening that many of the most popular mass-market services- Apple Music and Spotify- have, make them incredibly convenient for consumers. They allow for user-defined experiences and create dynamism with daily activities (workout, study playlists) that, while possible before, are now more easily integrated through our heavy use of smart devices. The tradeoff with these mass-market services is that they are less friendly to artists, as a majority of their work is a drop in an ocean. These can also feel very unrewarding when it comes to royalties as well, as stated before, Apple Music pays around $0.008 in royalties for every stream (less than a cent!). This means it takes around 128 streams for a dollar to be made. For many popular artists, meeting these requirements isn’t difficult, but it is for smaller artists. The large negative impact of these services that has been noted in the last few years is that artists are often forced to fish for streams, whether by outputting music that is specifically tailored to get streams or by asking their listeners to stream their music repetitively. An example of this is Justin Bieber’s push for his 2020 single “Yummy.” He made posts asking his fans to stream the song on repeat overnight while sleeping, or buy the song multiple times. I see this as a shameful side of the developing industry, as artists have to beg for streams to “game” the system. This can place the harmful mindset of only needing streams and not worrying about the craft in newer artists.
The opposite of these larger, more audience-focused services, are record label or artist-centric services (Patreon). These can make a more defined experience for a specific artist or label, decreasing the reach for audiences, but increasing the experience for those loyal to them. This also provides a better experience for the artist, as they have a better grasp of their audience’s experience, and they have a more defined stream of income.
The increase in user experience at the potential cost of diverse options for services and forcing a potentially creatively-hindering mindset for artists to garner streams is a tradeoff that I hope will better itself with time. Whether for better or worse, industries will continue to evolve and change, and the music industry is no different.