“Artists have long hated ad-supported free services, simply because there’s less in it for them. Naturally, the dominant ad-supported free services constantly argue that they pay fair rates and cite various statistics, but that hasn’t changed the conversation. Not one bit,” Evan Niu writes for The Motley Fool. “Apple wants to.”
“There’s a reason why consumers have been rapidly shifting their preferences away from traditional purchasing models toward streaming models: they get more while paying less,” Niu writes. “Even if you pay for a premium Spotify membership, you’re getting access to over 30 million songs for roughly $120 per year. In the old days, $120 per year might only buy you a handful of albums with dozens of songs. And a lot of people don’t pay for Spotify Premium and are happy to suffer through endless ads in exchange.”
“The flip side of this is that less money is flowing through to record labels and artists,” Niu writes. “In a way, the streaming model is on a collision course with the sustainability of the music industry itself. This is where Apple, always the music industry’s champion and ambassador to the consumer, can make a difference.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The record labels should smarten up and demand fair payment for supplying content to services that offer free tiers which will kill those tiers with great immediacy.
SEE ALSO:
Jimmy Iovine: Apple Music ‘going really well,’ no ad-suported free tier ‘shell game’ – October 8, 2015