The Music Startup Meltdown

James tipped me off to this piece on The Music Startup Meltdown that basically gives a high level overview of how much struggle is occurring when even the biggest heavy hitters in the music space. Soundcloud is hurting, TIDAL seems like a flop to most folks and even Spotify is continuing to raise money; despite it being the biggest player in the streaming music world. This quote is a nice bit of insight into the why this is happening:

Startup founders also overestimated just how much music matters to the average person. When you love music, you surround yourself with similar people, and that creates a confirmation bias - everyone wants to share playlists and discover new bands just as much as you and your friends! But really, they don't. The average consumer is happy to listen to the radio or Pandora, see a few concerts or a festival once a year, and leave it at that.

That doesn't explain why a service like Pandora or Spotify would be having a hard time with funds but it's a piece of the puzzle worth considering. Pretty much every music startup is a passive experience, as music is a pretty passive experience in itself.

I don't think this spells doom and gloom for the music world one bit. It's clearly harder for everyone to make money with music - startups, labels and musicians alike - but we're in a transitional period now and it's going to be interesting to see who makes it through.