Generating meaningful profit is a game the recording industry and streaming companies have struggled with in an era where libraries of songs are no longer stored on a user’s device but are instead broadcast over data plans. Money doesn’t circulate as easily, or even in the same directions, as it did in the years when buying songs for a buck on iTunes was the rage.
Spotify has over 55 million users under its ad-supported model, and another 20 million users under one of its subscription plans.
Until artists, labels, and the industry as a whole are happy with the direction streaming is going, we may be stuck with a watered down version of what the streaming revolution could have been.
