Rights and the Evolution of Music Streaming | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis

On a related note, see Amazon’s rumored cheaper music service illustrates its smart-home ambitions (The Washington Post)

"One interesting thing about this market is there are two major sets of players – those who make their money solely from these music services and those who make the vast majority of their money elsewhere. Spotify and Pandora can’t afford to keep losing money in this business because it’s the only business they have. Amazon, Apple, Google, and others, however, can afford to subsidize these offerings or run them at low margins because they feed the other parts of their businesses and generate additional revenues indirectly. Apple may be in the strongest position of all here because it has a user base willing to pay for content and they can afford to run the music business at a relatively low margin, while Amazon’s customer base is highly driven by saving money and Google’s true customer base is its advertisers, not its users. Much has been made of Spotify’s lead over Apple in on-demand streaming, but Apple offers the flavor of streaming the labels like and has already signed up half as many paid subs as Spotify. That’s the key number to watch – the labels have a stake in Spotify but would arguably benefit much more in the long-term from an industry that takes a dramatic turn toward paid streaming, a goal which Apple seems a lot more likely to help them achieve."

Rights and the Evolution of Music Streaming | Tech.pinions - Perspective, Insight, Analysis