We are in a day where the choice is yours. No one is obligated in using particular services or products. Believe it or not I own no Apple products. I was given a 4gb iPod shuffle as a gift one year. I lost it about a month or two later. I went out, bought an 8gb memory card, loaded up my blackberry with music and never looked back. Sure the commercials and other marketing campaigns for Apple looked and continues to be great, but at the end of the day I have a choice. I say this to say, I don’t understand why artists & music industry personnel continue to lash out at Spotify. As I tweeted earlier today, if a download is .99, how much do you expect to get from a stream? That’s not Spotify’s fault. They didn’t create streaming, they just created a great model to capitalize off it.
It’s understandable if artists & bands make the decision to not use the service, that’s their right, but the backlash is pointless and I’ll even say foolish. It’s interesting, this Spotify/Streaming issue is similar to the Facebook/Privacy issue. I wish there were some figures on the people who refused to sign up for Facebook due to privacy concerns that have since signed up. If Spotify continues to grow as I assume they will, I can definitely see the same thing happening here….what are you gonna do right?
What are your thoughts on Spotify and how its affecting the music industry?
Taurean Casey is the founder of Music Assistant Now, a company specializing in major label services for independent artists. He can be reached at taurean@musicassistantnow.com.