Stealing from the indie and giving to the top 40?

Why not “discovering” new music on Spotify might not be as big of a problem as some people fear:

http://spotifypresscom.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/

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I use Spotify as my main music streaming service, which means that it’s all but taken over as my main music source entirely. It just looks better than iTunes, UI-wise, and it has more music available to stream than I have downloaded in my library. That’s a pretty perfect recipe. I also really like the fact that each time I play a song, I’m earning a small amount of money for that band. This differs from the traditional purchase model, where initially the band gets a decent amount of money for their work, but whether you play their album once or one million times, the band only gets your initial ~$10 purchace price.

That being said, I was reading an article recently that made the claim that the average user of Spotify doesn't “discover” new music, but rather plays the music that they've already heard and are a fan of. This music generally being from big artists supported by even bigger record labels. There’s a reason that top 40 hits are called top 40, and that reason is that average people enjoy listening to these pop pieces endlessly. The average user, this article argued, doesn't care to spend the time finding new music from new artists.

The main question I was left with after reading this article (which for the life of me I can’t find to link to, sorry) was whether this listening habit is actually any different than the current state of digital downloaded music. For clarification, I do not wish to compare streaming to CD, vinyl, or other ways in which music can be consumed.

With the advent of iTunes and digital downloads of music, we saw a major shift in music purchasing format, changing from consumers buying albums to buying only their favorite single songs instead [annotation needed]. This meant that the average consumer was exposed to less variety than before, where if they wanted one song they were forced to purchase a collection of songs. So, with digital downloads, consumers are able to listen to only songs that they know.

Another thing with music downloads is that because of the initial buy-in cost, users are less likely to give a song a full listen before casting judgement. On Spotify (or YouTube, or any other streaming service) I am totally willing to listen to an entire song that I’ve never heard before to see if it is any good. On stores like iTunes, only a partial recording of each song is available for free, meaning that to cast full judgement, I have to pay $0.99-$1.29 just to see if I’ll really like the piece. This limits my ability to explore/discover.

If I were to make a profile, then, of the average user of .mp3's or other downloaded music, I would say that they have a set collection of music that they heard on average top 40 fm radio, and they lack much other variety. This seems to match the profile of the average Spotify user that the article painted. It is currently accepted (mostly) that downloaded music is not harmful to musicians regardless of their size, so why, then should Spotify be considered any different?

There are certainly edge users out there on both sides: Steve Guttenberg, the audiophile at cnet, being a notable one. He asks the question “Do you discover great new music on Spotify?” in a blog post, coming to the conclusion that it’s great for discovery, but that he prefers other methods. I’d like to think that I use discovery on Spotify better than the average user as well; I’m certainly no edge user, but I am conscious of listening to new music. I’m sure that there are consumers like this in the download camp as well, so I don’t think one can make the argument that this is a reason for or against either music proliferation method.

My final comment in defense of Spotify is that free (ad-supported) streaming cuts down on piracy. I have a friend (who shall remain nameless for his/her protection) that sourced most of his/her music collection from pirated content. He/she only bought a few albums that they really enjoyed. However, since getting a smartphone and discovering the utility of Spotify, he/she has converted to using Spotify for all of their music needs. So now he/she credits artist for each play, rather than his/her former system where all but a few artists received no compensation for their work at all. This is the true beauty of Spotify in my opinion. That being said, it is my opinion that one should still purchase albums that they truly enjoy.