iTunes, Pirates and Streaming
3 Oct
I was having beers with a couple of friends the other night and we were talking about digital distribution of music and one of my friends remarked on having heard Steve Jobs once say that he didn’t feel that iTunes was competing with CDs, but that it was competing with piracy. I responded that that wasn’t how it looked from where I was sitting as iTunes has competed very well with CDs, pushing them down the path towards obsolescence while music piracy (I was thinking strictly downloads) is still going strong.
This lead me to begin to think about what was competing with illegal downloading and the answer more or less hit me in the face- streaming. As someone who has a copious number of MP3s of questionable provenance on my various hard drives and listens to music on a regular basis, I was surprised to realize that I have only downloaded 3 albums in the last 6 months (for comparison, at one point I would say I was downloading about 5 per day). It was such a gradual transition that I hadn’t really considered the implications of it or had even really been cognescent of it. More than 95-100% of the music I listen to on a daily basis comes to me streamed from services ranging from the blatantly illegal (you know who you are) to the legally ambiguous (Seeqpod) to the fully legitimate (imeem). Online streaming has all but killed off (illegal) downloading in my life. While this revelation was a little slow in the coming for me (so slow in fact that MySpace beat me to it), it gave me something to think on.
As mobile bandwidth becomes increasingly more accesible, the idea of a music collection will cease to exist. All MP3 devices will have network capabilities. Who needs a 120GB iPod when all the world’s music is just a wireless connection away? So if the evolution of music consumption in recent years is as follows, CD, MP3, streaming, what comes next? If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have time to write rambling blog posts, but if Steve Jobs or anybody who else who claims to be competing with pirates wants to win, they better figure it out first or remain flexible enough to adjust and adapt when someonelse does.
Using Jobs as a touchpoint (heart attack or not) indicates a complete lack of understand of Jobs, his legacy and Apple. He has never figured anything out first…he is a marketer, plain and simple and packages ideas and trends into fetishes. Jobs does what young “change agent” lions NEVER do. He focusses on the wetware not the netware!!! People who out tech first in trying to suss out opportunity are limiting their opportunities. Jobs IS the consumate pirate and always bets on people, stealing tech and trends and marketing the shit out of it. Who cares what’s next? As long as you know how to market it when you see it. Ubiquitous computing and commoditized bandwidth…is far from new.
Jobs was only a touchpoint because my friend’s comment about him triggered the train of thought. This was in no way an attack on Jobs (I don’t even know if the quote that triggered this can actually be attributed to Jobs). The main point I was trying to make was how quickly and seamlessly my music consumption has transitioned from downloads to streaming (and how quickly it could transition to something else).
“Who cares what’s next? As long as you know how to market it when you see it.” I only partially agree with that sentiment. I agree you may not need to figure out what’s next first, but you cannot be far behind and you certainly do need to care or you will never be able to catch up, no matter how strong your marketing machinery is.
I would agree that ubiquitous computing and commoditized bandwidth are both far from new in theory, but they have a long way to go before we see them realized in practice. However, I do believe the explosion of streamed content as a primary form of consumption signifies a major milestone in the beginning of that realization.
Hmmm, okay. My only point was that winners are seldom first. And your music consumption hasnt changed in the least…the delivery mechanisms have. Cars today are fundamentally different (all but the interface) than they were 40 years ago, but we still use them to do exactly the same thing.
My music consumption has fundamentally changed. I do not buy or own any music. I do not pay for music with money, I pay for it solely with my attention. Previously, if I bought music (a CD or from iTunes), I would feel obligated to get value out of it by giving it several listens. Now because I have no upfront investment, I am less likely to pay attention to music that needs to grow on the listener.