Can a streaming service help rescue the music industry from meltdown?
Overnight success takes a long time… It’s been an interesting year within the music industry, with many insiders questioning whether Spotify’s model is a sustainable one. Meanwhile, it’s been amazing to see just how our users have taken Spotify to their hearts. I first considered writing about the state of ad-supported music, and given that I care more than most about figuring out a revenue model that doesn’t devalue music, it probably wouldn’t praise wholeheartedly (as some may have expected it to do) the ad-supported space. Especially since Spotify’s business model is, and has been since launch, more about the mix of subscription and ad supported. The truth, however, is that I feel there’s a bigger point worth making. The notion of overnight success is very misleading and actually rather harmful to any hope for long term and sustainable growth in this industry. Yet this is unfortunately something the music industry as a whole is particularly good at, expecting business models to be p
