Ask HN: Why hasn’t music been disrupted in the same ways movies have been? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why hasn’t music been disrupted in the same ways movies have been?

14 pointsgoopthink14 comments

When Netflix first started out, it was an aggregator of movies and shows not unlike Spotify for music is today. Originally, the biggest challenge was the technology parts of the business. But today, most of Netflix’s (and all of the competitors) challenges are not technology problems, but media creation problems - creating hit media. Meanwhile, all of the other production companies (HBO, Peacock, Disney) have caught up, while other technology entrants (Hulu, Apple TV) are likewise focusing on production of original content to stay competitive.

This is also starting to happen with Podcasts (Spotify as the leading example).

But why hasn’t it happened for music, proper? I think Jay-Z’s Tidal tried this but they weren’t successful. But Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, etc all have huge catalogs of music, and there is a trend of artists selling their catalogs to these companies. What’s to stop them from pulling back their licensing and launching their own app competing with Spotify? And conversely, why hasn’t Spotify moved into music production in the same way that it has moved into Podcasts? (Caveat being that they tried at some point with generic beats and piano and atmospheric music production, but those knockoffs fell flat and felt hidden).

Music has had radio and playing an individual song is very close to fair use. Further, music sort of has the same cost to produce, though big band is an exception. Because of this, legislators actually establish rules for commissions to be payed on music where it is hard to opt-out and since it is already setup, you are at a disadvantage if you do.

Can you actually opt out of the 'mechanical licenses'? You can certainly offer other terms, but I thought the legislated terms were always available.

Music is not capital-intensive unlike a TV show or a movie. But popular music can be manufactured in a sense, like there is a whole industry of Korean companies that train and turn-out kpop stars but that is an exception rather than a rule.

Music is more like books, which is an individual effort more than a group effort like a television show or a movie.

I don't know the answer to your question, but my intuition is that it has something to do with repeat value. I'll watch a movie once, maybe twice, but music? I'll listen to the same song 30 times in one week, not listen to it at all for 6 months, then listen to it with 20 times more, etc.

Music has a very different consumption profile.

I think one reason is that the big record companies rely on each other for discoverability. Consider two artists in a similar genre both signed to a different label. Label A couldn’t profit from people who would have discovered their artist A by listening to artist B signed to the competitor label B.

Also they can just demand more from Spotify etc. by threatening to pull their catalog. This would hurt Spotify a lot because people like to listen to playlists that include all their favorite tracks and not just the ones that aren’t from Universal Music. A lot of people would probably cancel their membership the next day because the value of it just sunk a lot.

Might it be because with music there’s a lot more fandom for specific bands/artists?

For example, if I want to watch the latest Tom Cruise action movie but Netflix doesn’t have it, I might settle for an alternative in the same genre. But if I want to hear the latest Adele album but my “disrupted music streaming service” doesn’t have it, I’m not gonna settle for an artists that sounds like Adele but isn’t her.

So if every label had their own streaming service, you’d basically needed to have a subscription to all of them. I don’t think that’s realistic and maybe the labels’ market research tells them the same?

I see this.

Netflix had a wide catalog of content licensed (or used permissionless in disc form) from many studios at the beginning. Eventually (1) Netflix found it was cheaper to own than rent as they got bigger and (2) studios wised up about the value of streaming.

So streaming is fragmented and the real action today is in things like Disney+, Peacock, etc.

For music there are many streaming services (say Apple Music, Amazon Music, …) that have basically the same catalog.

It sounds like you are asking why Sony doesn’t start a streaming service for just the music they own and other record labels follow suit. Is that right?

Correct - Either Sony/Universal launching their own service off the backs of making their catalogs exclusive, or Spotify cutting deals with existing artists to make their catalogs exclusive and then growing into being a music publisher themselves.

Some of it has to do with ‘does this brand stand for something?’

Death Row Records stands for something but Sony doesn’t. (Unless it some strange force that, speaking of emotion, drains all the emotion of the music, plus a I’ll fated fascination with inventing strange media formats like the mini disc, memory sticks, the PSP disc, …)

Contrast that to Disney+ because everybody knows what Disney stands for. Joining Disney+ probably makes you more likely to see Disney movies at the theater, go to Disney parks, etc.

> Netflix had a wide catalog of content licensed (or used permissionless in disc form) from many studios at the beginning. Eventually

…Netflix got streaming competition, and stopped being an monopsony.

It is much easier to produce a hit tv show or movie reliably than music. Music requires much more creativity and can't be manufactured as easily. Name recognition isn't even enough, you have the hottest people like Drake release an 15 song album and 2 weeks later only 1 of them is in the top 50. And there's no money in this business. The money comes from concerts and shit, streaming has changed the music business model forever

When I was a kid, it was noteworthy and a real honor if one artist had two top 40 songs at the same time. Right now, fucking fifteen of the hot 100 are some rapper named Gunna who I've never heard of, and so far do not care for.

It's like that after every major rapper's album release though. Anywho Billboard's algorithm aren't fully representative of what people actually care about, it's some weird flawed algorithm- but Spotify's Top 50 USA is probably a more accurate method as it sorts by listening count. I bet in 2 weeks, 13 of those 15 songs are going to fall off the top 100. I agree though, I don't care about Gunna either (haha).

I think you've worked it out: because Spotify doesn't sell music.

In producing it's own programming, Netflix started competing directly with the very people providing it's content.

I assume streaming on it's own just wasn't considered lucrative enough; but it still seems ill-advised to me. What happens seems completely predictable, yet Netflix could have had a really good long game here.

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