CNN Money has an interview with Sean Parker on the current state of digital music. Having cut his teeth (hem hem) with the original Napster, he’s well placed to talk about technological disruption and music. He refers to the industry’s current period of transition as “incredibly long and agonising”. He adds that “it is pretty clear at this point that the subscription model has won” (no surprise given his deep involvement with Spotify). Asked if there has to be one ‘winner’ in streaming, he make an interesting (if self-serving) point that obliquely refers back to Facebook, which he was also tightly involved with.
“I don’t think that this market works the same way as social media where there is a powerful network effect that causes a lock in,” he says. “I think that music as a service is something where there can be multiple winners. I don’t think it’s a winner-takes-all market like some of these other technology companies have been.” [MANDY RICE-DAVIES FACE] On Taylor Swift, he is full of praise for her ability to sell downloads and CDs but bristles somewhat when asked if Spotify wants her to put her music back on the service. “The interesting thing in looking at the numbers – there was no evidence in looking at the data of a change in consumption and usage when Taylor left the platform. So even if you take out one major contemporary artist it really doesn’t affect the overall usage.” Finally, he’s asked about Tidal and wheels in. “Generally when we’ve seen new entrants trying to compete with Spotify, they’ve had a really hard time getting critical mass. It hasn’t attracted enough customers quickly enough for them. It’s about scale […] It takes years to become as big as Spotify and it’s unclear whether Tidal or any of the new entrants have the staying power to get to that kind of scale.” Oooooh.
