Frankly, I never thought it would come to this. Did piracy kill music sales, or was it just streaming, which killed them by making it legal, and about as expensive as piracy? Or have music sales not been killed at all, just more distributed? Here's a nice article with some graphs (by the way, the first graph is misleading, and the rest of the article is spent explaining why).

Looking at these graphs, it really seems like the total number of sales has gone down. Substantially. Down 64% from their peak in '99 (in the US). Does this mean that all the talk about how people would be exposed to more music, and therefore consume more (like live shows, merchandise, etc.) was wrong? I don't know, the article doesn't cover that, and I don't care to do the research, but I have to be a bit sceptical considering what a massive drop we have seen.

Maybe digitization kind of cheapens the feel of media. It certainly doesn't feel the same to download an mp3 as buying an LP, or even a CD. It's no longer a physical object you can hold in your hand, or bring to your friend's house for a party. There is no incentive to buy music anymore apart from a moral obligation. Fuck, I feel morally obligated, and I STILL just keep putting off buying my music! Yeah, I go to live shows when I get the chance, but I can't kid myself into thinking that that's even close to what I would've spent on CDs in the early 90s, had I been old enough to afford music at the time.

Or maybe downloads are just too expensive? After having a quick look on Google Music, I see that albums range from £6-12, depending on how old they are. Not really unreasonable, especially considering how many I see around £7. The format is 320kbps mp3s, apparently, which is pretty good, I guess. I certainly can't hear the difference between that and a CD. Frankly, I think the price is fair.

Is streaming too cheap? Maybe it made sense to have it be £10 per month while introducing the format, but I bet a lot of people would pay more to be able to keep using it now. It's quite convenient. Maybe it would make more sense to change the way the money is distributed. Now, apparently, it's total_amount_of_money*times_your_songs_are_played/total_plays_on_spotify. Maybe it should be per person. As in, if I only listen to one artist, they would get all of my subscription money. I guess that might not make much of a difference in the big picture.

Anyway, I'm rambling at this point. Any insights, Hubski?