These fans have a very high willingness to pay. They want to unlock access to a relationship with an artist that they love. And you need a marketplace to do that. You need a two-sided marketplace that has direct access to artists and fans to facilitate that.

These fans have a very high willingness to pay. They want to unlock access to a relationship with an artist that they love. And you need a marketplace to do that. You need a two-sided marketplace that has direct access to artists and fans to facilitate that.

And let’s be real, streaming is also not enough for streamers. It’s a hard business model to make the math work. And we’re not so interested in the zero-sum game that is defined by a fan-powered model, or a pro-rata model, or artist-centric model, whatever. This in the end is dividing the pie into thinner and thinner slices. We’re more interested in putting new pies on the table. And… we feel like we’re in a position to capture that opportunity.

So when we hear about rights holders talking about trying to build relationships with fans, I’m not surprised. They need to do that. What we’re excited about at SoundCloud is that’s what we do every day. We’re a social platform in music, and now finding ways to productize that and monetize that, and put dollars in artists’ pockets through that relationship that they have directly with their fans. That’s going to be the new “pies on the table.”


https://www.musicbusinessworld....wide.com/podcast/sou