Music streaming platforms in 2023: the challenges, questions, and issues they face – expert analysis from Stuart Dredge, Music Ally’s Head of Insight

Episode 109: Music Ally’s Head of Insight, Stuart Dredge chats in depth with Joe Sparrow about the big picture issues that music streaming platforms, its users and economy will need to face  this year. We’ve just published our latest Quarterly Report which comprehensively breaks down each of the big global DSPs in a “Report Card” format – and to accompany it, Stu forecasts what might happen around various key topics: 

• The Transition from “music” to “audio” – music streaming services are becoming audio streaming services. Music is competing with other kinds of audio, be that podcasts or white noise, so what does that mean in terms of royalties and ear-share?
• Price rises – for users and for artists – there’s pressure from the music industry to raise the prices of streaming subscriptions: will adding a dollar or two does lead to a mass of cancellations or not? Can – or should –  the pie be grown? And what about changing the whole system of payment from pro-rata to something else?
• Direct artist support – DSPs are providing other ways to support artists: buying merch, buying tickets, and subscriptions are appearing more widely on streaming apps. And how do artists feel about introducing tipping to DSPs? 
• User interfaces and AI –  DSPs are introducing many new ways to interact with, and discover music, from TikTok-like feeds to AI DJs. So is the next leap for music discovery going to be conversations with AIs?
• The mid tier DSPs (and remember web3?) –  Deezer, SoundCloud, Tidal and Napster have all positioned themselves as disruptors in different ways. They're nimbler than the big DSPs and can experiment with novel ideas like web3 music – but what are the long-term prospects for these services?

Music Ally’s Quarterly Report: https://musically.com/category/reports/

34 dozen oysters in 8 minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Bertoletti#2012

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