The Strange Case Of Streaming

I know what you’re thinking, “Great, another goddamned article about streaming.” I apologize. It seems as if all anyone in the music business can talk about is streaming. There seems to be to sides to streaming, the side who believes that streaming is killing our once thriving industry, and the side who has been aggressively demonizing streaming music sites. But, which side is the right one?

To be completely honest, we don’t know. For the record’s sake, I am on the side that is pro-streaming. I pay $5.99 a month (thanks, student email address!) tp listen to Spotify wherever I want, whenever I want. It’s honestly been one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. In exchange for me kissing that $5.99 a month goodbye each month, I can listen to my favorite artists without eating up all of my precious data. I made the jump to Spotify Premium after getting fed up with the free version of the app’s shortcomings. These shortcomings include, but are not limited to:

• Having a limited amount of skips per day.
• Being unable to fast-forward through a song.
• Having to add a song to a playlist to listen to it.
• Only being able to listen with a strong internet connection.

With the paid Premium version, all of these issues are unlimited. Sure, those were only minor inconveniences. It’s not as though Spotify free was punching babies and stealing our women, but as a voracious music fan, it makes a big difference.

I strongly believe that streaming is the saving grace that the music industry has been looking for. Download sales are down, record sales are down, everything is down. Streaming is allowing artists to make their music more accessible and allowing for more wiggle room to make money.