UPDATE
We are moving towards a different digital footprint. Here's why...
Spotify and the End of the Streaming Era
For more than a decade, the music industry has organised itself around a single dominant idea: streaming is the final form of music consumption.
It promised unlimited access, instant discovery, and global reach. For listeners, it seemed like the perfect model. For artists, it was presented as the unavoidable path forward. For labels, it became the new infrastructure of distribution.
But beneath its apparent efficiency lies a fragile system — one increasingly showing signs of strain.
Music executive Jimmy Iovine recently suggested that streaming platforms are “minutes away from being obsolete”. It sounds dramatic, but there is growing evidence to suggest he may be right.
The question is not whether streaming will disappear tomorrow. It is whether it remains the centre of music’s future.
From Ownership to Dependency. For most of the twentieth century, record labels controlled every layer of music consumption.
They owned the artists, the recordings, the physical formats, and often the hardware itself. From vinyl to cassette to compact disc, the major labels had influence over the entire chain of production and distribution.
That model no longer exists.
Today, the music business relies almost entirely on third-party technology companies to deliver its product. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and others now own the platforms, the algorithms, the devices, and most importantly, the listener data.
The labels may still own the copyrights, but they no longer own the pipes.
This shift has changed the balance of power completely.
When Music Becomes a Utility
Unlike film and television, where platforms compete through exclusive content, music streaming offers little meaningful differentiation.
Whether you subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal or Amazon Music, the catalogue is broadly the same.
One hundred million songs, available everywhere, all the time.
This creates a dangerous effect: music becomes a utility.
Like water, electricity and gas.
Always on.
Always there.
And when something becomes ubiquitous, it often becomes undervalued.
Music moves from being an event to being ambient. Something consumed passively rather than treasured actively.
For artists, this shift is profound. Value is no longer attached to the work itself, but to the convenience of access.
A Business Model Under Pressure
The economics of streaming remain fundamentally unstable.
Unlike software companies or video platforms, music streaming does not scale efficiently. In most tech businesses, growth improves profit margins because costs remain relatively fixed. Music streaming works differently.
Every stream generates a royalty payment. Roughly seventy per cent of streaming revenue is paid back out to rights holders. The more users engage, the more costs rise.
This creates a structural problem.
Platforms such as Apple and Amazon can absorb this because music serves a wider commercial ecosystem. It helps sell phones, subscriptions, and hardware.
Spotify, however, has no broader ecosystem.
Its business depends entirely on streaming itself.
And when margins tighten, artists are often the first to absorb the pressure.
The Illusion of Audience Ownership
Streaming has created access without relationship.
Artists can reach millions of listeners, but they rarely own those connections.
No email addresses.
No phone numbers.
No direct communication.
The platform controls the audience.
Interestingly, we can still maintain direct contact with our audience through Bandcamp but how long for? We don't own the real estate which means that we remain vulnerable.
This creates a dangerous dependency. Artists build careers on systems where the most valuable asset, the fan relationship remains largely inaccessible.
The platform benefits from the artist’s work, but the artist gains only temporary visibility.
This is not community.
It is tenancy.
And tenancy offers no permanence.
Why the Middle Class of Music Is Disappearing
The pro-rata payment model has accelerated inequality within music.
All subscription revenue is pooled together and distributed according to total market share.
This means listener money does not necessarily support the artists they actually listen to. Instead, it disproportionately flows to those already dominating the global charts.
The result is predictable.
Superstars grow richer.
The top one per cent consolidates power.
Mid-level and independent artists are squeezed harder.
This hollowing out of the middle class is one of the most significant threats to music’s creative ecosystem.
Without a sustainable middle, experimentation suffers.
And culture becomes narrower.
The Rise of the Micro-Community
If streaming is no longer the endgame, what replaces it?
Not necessarily another platform.
The next era of music may be less about mass reach and more about direct connection. This is what we at Falling A are shifting towards. It's a step back towards our cassette culture heritage. It's a nice touch that this would begin to take place in our 5oth year.
Artists are increasingly building private ecosystems: mailing lists, subscription communities, exclusive vinyl runs, limited merch, fan clubs, and intimate live experiences.
Our focus is shifting.
From total streams to loyal supporters.
From algorithmic visibility to direct value.
From mass audience to micro-community.
This changes the economics entirely.
A thousand deeply invested fans can often sustain an artist more effectively than millions of passive streams.
Beyond the Algorithm
For years, artists have been trained to chase the algorithm.
To optimise.
To post.
To pre-save.
To feed the machine.
But algorithms do not create loyalty.
People do.
The next phase of the music industry may belong not to those who achieve the widest reach, but to those who build the deepest connection.
Streaming may not vanish.
But its dominance is no longer guaranteed.
And for the first time in years, the industry is being forced to ask a different question.
Not how do we get more streams?
But what comes after them?
There will be more news in due course.
We are moving towards a different digital footprint. Here's why...
Spotify and the End of the Streaming Era
For more than a decade, the music industry has organised itself around a single dominant idea: streaming is the final form of music consumption.
It promised unlimited access, instant discovery, and global reach. For listeners, it seemed like the perfect model. For artists, it was presented as the unavoidable path forward. For labels, it became the new infrastructure of distribution.
But beneath its apparent efficiency lies a fragile system — one increasingly showing signs of strain.
Music executive Jimmy Iovine recently suggested that streaming platforms are “minutes away from being obsolete”. It sounds dramatic, but there is growing evidence to suggest he may be right.
The question is not whether streaming will disappear tomorrow. It is whether it remains the centre of music’s future.
From Ownership to Dependency. For most of the twentieth century, record labels controlled every layer of music consumption.
They owned the artists, the recordings, the physical formats, and often the hardware itself. From vinyl to cassette to compact disc, the major labels had influence over the entire chain of production and distribution.
That model no longer exists.
Today, the music business relies almost entirely on third-party technology companies to deliver its product. Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and others now own the platforms, the algorithms, the devices, and most importantly, the listener data.
The labels may still own the copyrights, but they no longer own the pipes.
This shift has changed the balance of power completely.
When Music Becomes a Utility
Unlike film and television, where platforms compete through exclusive content, music streaming offers little meaningful differentiation.
Whether you subscribe to Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal or Amazon Music, the catalogue is broadly the same.
One hundred million songs, available everywhere, all the time.
This creates a dangerous effect: music becomes a utility.
Like water, electricity and gas.
Always on.
Always there.
And when something becomes ubiquitous, it often becomes undervalued.
Music moves from being an event to being ambient. Something consumed passively rather than treasured actively.
For artists, this shift is profound. Value is no longer attached to the work itself, but to the convenience of access.
A Business Model Under Pressure
The economics of streaming remain fundamentally unstable.
Unlike software companies or video platforms, music streaming does not scale efficiently. In most tech businesses, growth improves profit margins because costs remain relatively fixed. Music streaming works differently.
Every stream generates a royalty payment. Roughly seventy per cent of streaming revenue is paid back out to rights holders. The more users engage, the more costs rise.
This creates a structural problem.
Platforms such as Apple and Amazon can absorb this because music serves a wider commercial ecosystem. It helps sell phones, subscriptions, and hardware.
Spotify, however, has no broader ecosystem.
Its business depends entirely on streaming itself.
And when margins tighten, artists are often the first to absorb the pressure.
The Illusion of Audience Ownership
Streaming has created access without relationship.
Artists can reach millions of listeners, but they rarely own those connections.
No email addresses.
No phone numbers.
No direct communication.
The platform controls the audience.
Interestingly, we can still maintain direct contact with our audience through Bandcamp but how long for? We don't own the real estate which means that we remain vulnerable.
This creates a dangerous dependency. Artists build careers on systems where the most valuable asset, the fan relationship remains largely inaccessible.
The platform benefits from the artist’s work, but the artist gains only temporary visibility.
This is not community.
It is tenancy.
And tenancy offers no permanence.
Why the Middle Class of Music Is Disappearing
The pro-rata payment model has accelerated inequality within music.
All subscription revenue is pooled together and distributed according to total market share.
This means listener money does not necessarily support the artists they actually listen to. Instead, it disproportionately flows to those already dominating the global charts.
The result is predictable.
Superstars grow richer.
The top one per cent consolidates power.
Mid-level and independent artists are squeezed harder.
This hollowing out of the middle class is one of the most significant threats to music’s creative ecosystem.
Without a sustainable middle, experimentation suffers.
And culture becomes narrower.
The Rise of the Micro-Community
If streaming is no longer the endgame, what replaces it?
Not necessarily another platform.
The next era of music may be less about mass reach and more about direct connection. This is what we at Falling A are shifting towards. It's a step back towards our cassette culture heritage. It's a nice touch that this would begin to take place in our 5oth year.
Artists are increasingly building private ecosystems: mailing lists, subscription communities, exclusive vinyl runs, limited merch, fan clubs, and intimate live experiences.
Our focus is shifting.
From total streams to loyal supporters.
From algorithmic visibility to direct value.
From mass audience to micro-community.
This changes the economics entirely.
A thousand deeply invested fans can often sustain an artist more effectively than millions of passive streams.
Beyond the Algorithm
For years, artists have been trained to chase the algorithm.
To optimise.
To post.
To pre-save.
To feed the machine.
But algorithms do not create loyalty.
People do.
The next phase of the music industry may belong not to those who achieve the widest reach, but to those who build the deepest connection.
Streaming may not vanish.
But its dominance is no longer guaranteed.
And for the first time in years, the industry is being forced to ask a different question.
Not how do we get more streams?
But what comes after them?
There will be more news in due course.
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