Ever since the digitization of the music industry in the late 1990's and early 2000's, especially after the failure of peer-to-peer sharing services like Napster, music streaming music has risen to the top. Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud, and the fairly recent Apple Music are some of the most popular services. These services can be free, but will usually have advertisements playing to make up for not generating revenue from a user. Otherwise, many have a paid subscription option, which involves a monthly payment for ad-free listening among other benefits. As a consumer, I have had the opportunity to try different services, and for me, one sticks out above the others: Spotify.
What's important to me, as somebody who streams music? Money may be on the mind of most consumers. Companies like Napster found success (at least in the beginning) somewhat because of how appealing it being free was. I am a subscriber to Spotify Premium, specifically the family plan which connects my dad, my sister and I, and has a lower cost than if we all paid for separate single-user plans. Luckily for me, my dad doesn't make me pay any of this cost. However, that is not the average user's situation, so let's assume the typical Spotify Premium, no-family-plan-subscriber is paying the $9.99 per month fee. They are paying for the ability to listen to whatever they want whenever they want, and receive personalized playlists and data summary. A non-Premium user has a limited number of times they can skip songs and must listen to advertisements in between songs. Even if I were paying for my own subscription, I would still pay the $10. It's important to me that I can play the music I want to, since that is why I'm streaming music at all. Some services only require free users to listen to the ads, so Spotify limiting skips and offering Premium benefits help convince consumers to subscribe.
What does Spotify have that other services don't offer? To me, it's the personalization. Spotify makes a Discover Weekly playlist for each user that recommends 30 new songs each week. You get an annual summary of what you listened to that year, there are playlists of songs you've had on repeat lately, four different "Your Daily Mix" playlists-- it's endless. I can't say that every user checks out all these playlists, in fact I've heard from other people that many don't, but I appreciate that they're there. Spotify also has a social component; you can follow your friends' accounts and listen to their playlists. Artists can make playlists for their fans to listen to as well. However, other services offer some of those features as well.
When comparing features and business models, these services can seem fairly similar. In terms of generating revenue, Spotify gets money from subscribers like myself, advertisements, and the collection and sale of user data. However, though some may argue streaming services have significant similarities, Spotify stands out and has succeeded in creating a brand-loyal consumer in me.
I am personally not subscribed to a music service, preferring mixes compiled by YouTube based on my video preferences. One reason I prefer YouTube is because I don't believe artists make a fair amount of money per play on Spotify (I believe the per play rate is higher for YouTube). The common argument is some money is better than no money, but many artists have to put their music on Spotify because much of their audience listens to music cross-platform. There is a demand for streaming services like Spotify because people want to consume high quality music cheaply, not particularly because they want to support artists. It is important to consider the desires of the consumers as the music industry continues to change and evolve in order to find the sweet spot at which both consumers and producers are happy.
ReplyDeleteSpotify is also my favorite music service and is to many others' as well. Just as Napster did for consumers that record industries could not do, you can get more music for your money with Spotify, an example being the personalized playlists you mentioned. Spotify also seems to have more music than other streaming services such as Amazon music. I think this shows that one of the most important factors is getting as much music as possible because people see it as a better deal and best satifies many's utility.
ReplyDeleteI also use Spotify for music, and I agree with the reasons stated above about what makes Spotify stand out: personalization. I remember that I used to own an Android, and I used to listen to music through Google Play Music. Their business model (or at least the one I knew of back then) was paying for individual songs/albums. This became quite pricey, because single songs were like $1.29, which becomes pretty costly when you add them up. I love the personalization, the fresh updates, and the fact that you can share music easily with other users on Spotify.
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