It’s 2022 and Artists are Still Being Failed by the Music Industry — What Went so Wrong?
Never before in history have fans enjoyed such privileged access to their favourite artists. We have click-of-a-button access to entire streaming catalogues on our phones, 24/7 coverage of creators on social media, and millions-strong legions of fans forming music communities across the web.
Why then, are we at a historic low in terms of industry support of up-and-coming artists? In spite of burgeoning technology, there is a growing sense that smaller creators are being marginalised at best — and exploited at worst — by some of the industry’s biggest players. What are the factors that lead to this mess? And where do we go from here?
Streaming giants are designed to cater to celebrities
People are often surprised to hear that revenue sharing among streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music is pegged at only a few thousand dollars per million streams. Aside from their ability to make tracks easily accessible on smart phones, conventional streaming platforms remain largely unviable for smaller and medium sized artists.
Grassroots solutions, including Patreon and Bandcamp-like services, have acted as a tonic for struggling artists, but without addressing systemic inequalities in music distribution and monetisation.
Social media fragmentation is toxic
Lack of community features — an issue endemic to music platforms both on Web2 and Web3 — has forced artists to spread the bulk of their social capital and resources over mainstream social media.
Lacking in native options for monetization however, platforms like Twitter and Instagram require fans to then go back to streaming service to achieve conversion, making outreach on these platforms far more convoluted than it needs to be. With their online persona fragmented across the web, artists have struggled to discover unique ways in which to promote their music. In the fallout, fans are being deprived of better, more streamlined content.
What about Web3?
Web3 infrastructure is ripe to meet the needs of up and coming musicians, but new avenues for artists seeking self-promotion are desperately needed. The majority of Web3 integrated music projects operate on a stakeholder model; fans may utilise NFTs to purchase shares in individual tracks, albums, or even artists themselves, and earn revenue from future streams and/or in a secondary market. While more well established musicians have enjoyed great success in leveraging on-chain tech, the existing songs-as-NFTs model has been difficult to infiltrate for the vast majority of smaller and medium sized artists seeking to monetise their content.
Enter TRAX
A purpose-built platform for artists and music lovers, TRAX delivers a curated feed of music content wrapped in a social media interface. In the style of popular membership platforms like Patreon, TRAX joins up content distribution and outreach with monetization. Users may access creators’ streaming catalogue and social media content at the same time through one individual subscription, giving artists commercial and creative control over their career in a single Web3 space.
TRAX’s solution to iniquities in the music industry is simple. Firstly, we replace dated revenue-sharing models with a social marketplace model, allowing creators to benefit directly from subscriptions and purchases from fans. Secondly, we entwine parallel streams of music and social media content, creating a one-stop-shop for artists to list and promote their music. Finally, we leverage emergent Web3 tech on the ICP network, allowing us to foster a transparent environment and share growth with users as the platform develops. Read more about TRAX features and join the new movement against music industry exploitation, from the sound up.
