This article is for me something that we've been chasing a lot in this community, the value-for-value culture, which, according to this article, we're heading the right way but before that, some highlights.

Quick history lesson on who actually used to control the pipes:

For the entire 20th century, major labels didn’t only own the copyrights - they owned the hardware. They were basically integrated tech and manufacturing monopolies wearing the disguise of art companies.

RCA (Radio Corporation of America) owned RCA records (Elvis Presley, David Bowie, John Denver, to name a few…) But they also invented the 45 RPM vinyl format and manufactured the physical record players you had to buy to listen to it.

Philips owned PolyGram Records. They also literally invented the Compact Cassette tape in the 1960s.

Sony owned CBS Records (Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and more). But they also co-invented the Compact Disc in 1982 (with Philips), and manufactured the Sony Walkman and Discmans that played them.

This part made me noise because, as we can read, the music mafia (aka industry) had the hardware/software/ownership of the music. They control everything but not today. So what's the difference today between Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal and Deezer? Nothing. Just UX and the business who is making the platform. The product per se, according to the writer, is like tap water, there's no unique experience.

In a normal tech business (like SaaS or Netflix), as you gain more subscribers, your profit margins increase exponentially because your fixed costs stay relatively stable. Once Netflix pays $20 million to produce an original movie, that cost is fixed. Whether 1 million or 100 million people watch it, the cost doesn’t change. The margin expands.

Streaming music operates in reverse. Because DSPs pay out roughly 70% of every dollar earned back to rightsholders (labels and publishers), their costs scale linearly with their user base. Every time a song is streamed, a fraction of a cent leaves the building.

Let me say this more directly: they're not making money. The music business is not making money because you're selling the hardware in some way. Apple is selling an iPhone, Amazon the Kindle, etc. So, Spotify doesn't have this and what are they gonna do? Squeeze the artist/user.

"It's one-dimensional. It's an ATM machine. You put your money in, you get your music," Iovine stated. "They don't do anything for the artist. The artist wants to communicate with their fans, period... and the streaming services are still saying, 'We'll put you on our list if you're nice to us.' That's bullshit."

Nothing to add here. That's how I feel.

So, what's left for artist?

Accoring to Jimmy Iovine:

What if Jimmy is right? If the DSPs are “minutes away from obsolete,” what replaces them? Well, I’m not sure the DSPs are going to disappear overnight, but if you’re an artist or a manager trying to sustain yourself in this evolving music economy, the answer is direct ownership.

So, I'm not saying we're the smartest people in the world, those who talk about this like 2 years ago, as you can see: #1285543, #1270438 #1225639 and these are what I recall. The music industry is going the right way, through projects like @wavlake and @fountain

We're heading the future of music, gentlemen. Just hang tight because, we already won.