"...the selling and downloading of song files is a vestigial consumer behavior leftover from the physical media era. Consumers are still transitioning out of the idea of 'owning' their music, and downloads happened to be that natural and convenient next step in the 'digital' age. But the clouds are forming, and the storm is bound to rain (apologies for the blatant metaphor). Between Youtube, blogs and Spotify, you can already find just about any song you could possibly want to hear. Anecdotally I hear more and more kids who can’t be bothered to download anymore - the gratification is so much more instant on YouTube. Increasingly, the main value of buying or pirating an MP3 these days is that it’s a mode of cataloguing a personal music library (and sloppy one at that). Even this distinction is eroding under the increasing maturation of cloud music."
People have been saying this for years and it hasn’t happened and I still don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think this type of analysis is flawed on multiple levels, but in particular in how it looks at consumers as a whole.
Looking at the industry post-2000, the way I see it is people tend to fall into one of two buckets as music ‘downloaders’: (1) people who tend to discover and consume music passively (i.e. hear a song on the radio, download the single for repeat enjoyment), and (2) people who actively discover and consume music (i.e. discover a new artist, download their album to hear more).
Regarding bucket (1), I’d say the post is pretty spot-on. These consumers, who I’d easily say make up the majority in the market, are switching towards platforms that deemphasize ownership, and thus render ‘sales’ from iTunes and the like obsolete. But these people never really wanted to ‘own’ the content in the first place; I agree with the post that, for them, ownership was just the more natural and convenient option to consumption.
But for bucket (2), I don’t see this type of transition occurring. These people weren’t just downloading content as a means to enjoy it; the process of discovering, downloading, building-out a collection, and being able to play-back from an exact catalogue of music you like is all part of the experience. For these consumers one of the values of a platform is the ability to get all the music they want and enjoy it exactly as they chose. These consumers may not be as numerous as those in bucket (1), but putting aside the means of download (i.e. iTunes sales may be mostly singles downloaded by bucket (1), but I’d guess a larger portion of total digital music downloads across the web come from bucket (2) with torrents and the like included), they represent the majority of the digital music market. And 'platforms' like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube (if you can even consider it as adequate at all in this context), and others will never replace the ability to build a personal collection.
iTunes may become obsolete soon enough as the less intensive consumers switch to such platforms as described, and the whole system of managing a collection may move to the cloud as well, but I don’t see the act of downloading and maintaining a personal music collection in general going anywhere.
Hey I wrote the blog post, and I'm firmly in bucket 2. I frikkin love music. If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak. I just don't think we define the market because we're so in the minority. As sad as it might be, I think convenience wins over quality everytime, so bucket 1 will define the market. I'm not trying to define the market, I'm just trying to predict it... so it is what it is.
"If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak" Hell yeah!
And I totally understand that, all I’m saying (and this is based on my general understanding of the market and no hard data at all, so take it as you will), but there’s a lot of people like you and me out there, and the market will exist, and can thrive serving us. And looking at things from the perspective of current digital music sales ignores the bulk of these people. If anything, a focus towards developing a model that serves people like us will only go towards expanding the market for music ‘sales’ (i.e. converting would-be pirated downloads to sales).
And without going too far-off on a tangent, I’d also argue that the market in many ways depends on the minority of high-volume consumers functioning as the ‘early adaptors’ who discover music and popularize it for the masses. This market, in my opinion, will always be a fairly strong force and will always be served in some fashion that involves ownership (whether that be legal or otherwise).
And 'platforms' like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube (if you can even consider it as adequate at all in this context), and others will never replace the ability to build a personal collection.
I agree. In particular, I would add that many of these platforms serve the classical music listeners poorly, IME. I tend to see lots of a) overplayed pieces that I've heard a billion times like Vivaldi's Seasons and/or b) mediocre orchestras/artists (the Radio Orchestra of East Bulgaria or something). The ITunes catalogue is also rather weak, actually. Lots of great classical CDs can't be found there. Finally, in many cases I'm attached to a particular rendition or version. I don't want to hear the Brandenburg Concertos on modern instruments, for example, yet you'll often hear this sort of thing on these services.
So, at this point I have a very large classical collection that I've accumulated over the years that serves my idiosyncratic tastes. Until someone comes along that provides an equivalent experience -- and there's probably a market opportunity there -- nothing can replace it.
I'm also big on performance and interpretation of classical music. I've compromised my quality standards on every genre of music except classical music, which I still revert back to my CD collection. Sadly, I feel classical's aging audience hasn't created the forcing function for that industry to get organized regarding the categorization and distribution of their catalogue online, which is a damn shame. Having said that, it takes a certain tuned ear to pick out the world of difference in the performance and interpretation between pieces that are compositionally identical. I personally feel you need a certain threshold of fidelity to distinguish those subtleties.
Because of this, I find I listen to less and less classical music over the years, simple because CD device players are starting to disappear from my life. For example, I'm typing on a laptop right now that doesn't even have a CD drive (Macbook Air). I literally have to go out of my way to listen to classical music in the way I want to hear it. It's sort of sad, really.
Comments
"...the selling and downloading of song files is a vestigial consumer behavior leftover from the physical media era. Consumers are still transitioning out of the idea of 'owning' their music, and downloads happened to be that natural and convenient next step in the 'digital' age. But the clouds are forming, and the storm is bound to rain (apologies for the blatant metaphor). Between Youtube, blogs and Spotify, you can already find just about any song you could possibly want to hear. Anecdotally I hear more and more kids who can’t be bothered to download anymore - the gratification is so much more instant on YouTube. Increasingly, the main value of buying or pirating an MP3 these days is that it’s a mode of cataloguing a personal music library (and sloppy one at that). Even this distinction is eroding under the increasing maturation of cloud music."
People have been saying this for years and it hasn’t happened and I still don’t see it happening anytime soon. I think this type of analysis is flawed on multiple levels, but in particular in how it looks at consumers as a whole.
Looking at the industry post-2000, the way I see it is people tend to fall into one of two buckets as music ‘downloaders’: (1) people who tend to discover and consume music passively (i.e. hear a song on the radio, download the single for repeat enjoyment), and (2) people who actively discover and consume music (i.e. discover a new artist, download their album to hear more).
Regarding bucket (1), I’d say the post is pretty spot-on. These consumers, who I’d easily say make up the majority in the market, are switching towards platforms that deemphasize ownership, and thus render ‘sales’ from iTunes and the like obsolete. But these people never really wanted to ‘own’ the content in the first place; I agree with the post that, for them, ownership was just the more natural and convenient option to consumption.
But for bucket (2), I don’t see this type of transition occurring. These people weren’t just downloading content as a means to enjoy it; the process of discovering, downloading, building-out a collection, and being able to play-back from an exact catalogue of music you like is all part of the experience. For these consumers one of the values of a platform is the ability to get all the music they want and enjoy it exactly as they chose. These consumers may not be as numerous as those in bucket (1), but putting aside the means of download (i.e. iTunes sales may be mostly singles downloaded by bucket (1), but I’d guess a larger portion of total digital music downloads across the web come from bucket (2) with torrents and the like included), they represent the majority of the digital music market. And 'platforms' like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube (if you can even consider it as adequate at all in this context), and others will never replace the ability to build a personal collection.
iTunes may become obsolete soon enough as the less intensive consumers switch to such platforms as described, and the whole system of managing a collection may move to the cloud as well, but I don’t see the act of downloading and maintaining a personal music collection in general going anywhere.
Hey I wrote the blog post, and I'm firmly in bucket 2. I frikkin love music. If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak. I just don't think we define the market because we're so in the minority. As sad as it might be, I think convenience wins over quality everytime, so bucket 1 will define the market. I'm not trying to define the market, I'm just trying to predict it... so it is what it is.
"If it was up to me, we'd all go back to vinyl bumping through wide cones set in heavy oak" Hell yeah!
And I totally understand that, all I’m saying (and this is based on my general understanding of the market and no hard data at all, so take it as you will), but there’s a lot of people like you and me out there, and the market will exist, and can thrive serving us. And looking at things from the perspective of current digital music sales ignores the bulk of these people. If anything, a focus towards developing a model that serves people like us will only go towards expanding the market for music ‘sales’ (i.e. converting would-be pirated downloads to sales).
And without going too far-off on a tangent, I’d also argue that the market in many ways depends on the minority of high-volume consumers functioning as the ‘early adaptors’ who discover music and popularize it for the masses. This market, in my opinion, will always be a fairly strong force and will always be served in some fashion that involves ownership (whether that be legal or otherwise).
And 'platforms' like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube (if you can even consider it as adequate at all in this context), and others will never replace the ability to build a personal collection.
I agree. In particular, I would add that many of these platforms serve the classical music listeners poorly, IME. I tend to see lots of a) overplayed pieces that I've heard a billion times like Vivaldi's Seasons and/or b) mediocre orchestras/artists (the Radio Orchestra of East Bulgaria or something). The ITunes catalogue is also rather weak, actually. Lots of great classical CDs can't be found there. Finally, in many cases I'm attached to a particular rendition or version. I don't want to hear the Brandenburg Concertos on modern instruments, for example, yet you'll often hear this sort of thing on these services.
So, at this point I have a very large classical collection that I've accumulated over the years that serves my idiosyncratic tastes. Until someone comes along that provides an equivalent experience -- and there's probably a market opportunity there -- nothing can replace it.
I'm also big on performance and interpretation of classical music. I've compromised my quality standards on every genre of music except classical music, which I still revert back to my CD collection. Sadly, I feel classical's aging audience hasn't created the forcing function for that industry to get organized regarding the categorization and distribution of their catalogue online, which is a damn shame. Having said that, it takes a certain tuned ear to pick out the world of difference in the performance and interpretation between pieces that are compositionally identical. I personally feel you need a certain threshold of fidelity to distinguish those subtleties.
Because of this, I find I listen to less and less classical music over the years, simple because CD device players are starting to disappear from my life. For example, I'm typing on a laptop right now that doesn't even have a CD drive (Macbook Air). I literally have to go out of my way to listen to classical music in the way I want to hear it. It's sort of sad, really.