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With Spotify, the music industry is collectively able to extract $120/year from you for your at-home music listening experience. Would they be able to extract more with buying CDs or digital downloads? Or would you spend a similar or smaller amount, and simply consume less?

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Zoom out a bit and take a group of friends 20 years ago vs now. A CD would commonly be shared/ripped, unlikely that everyone in the group buys the same record. Nowadays I wouldn't be surprised if sharing music is much less common since the monthly fee is quite low and good value.

I think now they can extract $120 in subscription fees, back then they might have been able to extract $120 in each person buying 4 CD's a year for $30.

My gut feeling (that might be completely wrong) is that the total value extracted probably stays roughly the same or goes up with an increase in disposable income.

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