The music streaming industry is changing for the better with the help of Qobuz, Sonu.stream, and their pay-to-stream models.

Two up-and-coming streaming services have developed different approaches to changing the industry with the aim of impacting artists and consumers.

Is the current music streaming model an industry killer?

With the tap of a button, your phone transforms into a music library, filled with your favorite artists and genres. But is music industry streaming an industry killer? In 2022, $11 was being paid per month by almost 400 million people to gain access to over 100 million songs.

The streaming giant’s 0.0007c per stream model isn’t working. Your average musician’s bank account isn’t getting any richer, and discovering independent music isn’t getting any easier.

With the EU recognizing this problem, and members of the European Parliament raising their concerns. It is already a good start to a better future. Concerns like unfair revenue distribution, an imbalance of visibility between popular and emerging artists, and a lack of regulation surrounding AI where brought up on the EU Parliament bulletin.

The new additions to the music streaming industry

Platforms like Qobuz, and Sonu.stream come with their own unique features, from human-curated collections to blockchain technology. They could topple down the present streaming giants (or force them to change for the better of artists).

Laura Jaramillo, alongside revered producer TOKiMONSTA, has built an ‘‘increase the pie’’ streaming service for everybody with the use of Web3 technology on Sonu.stream. Coming together, they believe that the ‘economics of streaming is very broken’, and through the use of NFTs, a song can be traced to its artists, protecting them from AI-generated music.

‘Everything is racing forward with the algorithm,’ Dan Mackta, the managing director of Qobuz, has said. With this new platform, you’ll travel back to an old-school vinyl shop with its ‘‘cool record store version of a streaming service’’.

Can these new platforms stick around?

Streaming platforms like Qobuz and Sonu.stream show us the motivation and desire to change the music streaming industry and give artists the spotlight they deserve. Each founder behind these platforms has one similar goal: to be the change they want to see. With little to no transparency in new music and listeners having no control over the outcome of the algorithm, we need a change.

Artists, consumers, and those who care about the core of the music industry want to see a change in the power of the streaming giants and their control over what millions of people listen to.

Download Qobuz and get on the Sonu.stream waitlist to start listening. You can also check out our latest articles on the music industry.

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