Young Listeners Opt For Streaming Over Owning 390
An anonymous reader writes "CNN reports that younger listeners are increasingly opting to stream music rather than own it. If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?,' ponders the article. The distinction between streaming music and owning music is starting to blur. From the article: 'But Van Buskirk also suggests another reason for streaming, not acquiring music. It's liberating. "There is a certain relief with not having to own music. It is a lot of work," he said. ... Porter says the way people own music is transforming. He believes the cloud model is where the state of music is heading, and for many people ownership is not essential. "I think ownership is access, you don't have to have music on your local hard drive to own it," he said.' Will the concept of ownership of music and software fade as cloud based services become the way people expect to access media and software?"
Circles (Score:5, Insightful)
We seem to be going in circles with music. Own a phonograph, stream from radio, own an 8 track/cassette/CD, stream from TV (MTV or countless other music channels), own mp3's, stream from the Net
Ownership may fade in the short term (Score:5, Insightful)
Without ownership, you're giving someone else the ability to take away your access. Once that happens a couple times, I think people will start moving back to an ownership model.
I think the cloud is great as long as it works. The problem is these services sometimes go away. I was personally bitten by the Google Video shutdown. They refunded the money I paid at the end, but I lost the shows I bought. Now I don't buy videos unless they're on DVD or Blu-Ray. At least I have the physical media and player in hand.
TCO (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess it all comes down to how often do you want to pay for it? One time up front, or every single time you want to listen to it. For me it's the former. Also, the biggest fallacy in the article is "If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?" What happens when the service you're streaming from is no longer available or the RIAA revokes the licenses. What happens then? I guess people will just move on to the next hit and not care.
"Liberating" (Score:4, Insightful)
1) It's "liberating" in the same sense that being chemically castrated and color-blinded is "liberating" in Lois Lowry's The Giver. You are "liberated" from the onerous chore of responsibility for your own actions.
2) Oh, you know what, even though you've spent $100 bucks on every album by Blah Artist, he's now a bad influence on society. We, the corporations, will benevolently "liberate" you from such unwholesome thoughts. *287 files deleted*
Bandwidth costs, offline access ... (Score:5, Insightful)
For me, streaming is the opposite of what I want. Between ISPs wanting apply bandwidth caps and additional costs, or being able to play music in my car or wherever I want it, I definitely prefer to own.
Granted, I'm not covered under the definition of "young" here, so it's probably a generational thing.
I still pretty much exclusively get my music on CD, and transfer it to MP3 so I can play it on whatever device I want to.
I'm definitely in the "own not rent" camp.
A wise man once said (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Probably just because it's so easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. Pandora, for example, is free and has less ads than a radio station. One can even up/downvote various songs so that it plays more music that you're interested in.
Even their paid service is only $36/year, has better quality, and no ads. Why would I bother to buy a small amount music (particularly on physical CD) when I could pay less (either $0 or $36/year) in exchange for essentially unlimited amounts of music any time I want it?
Then again, I have a 5-minute commute on the train and am in the lab all day working on an internet-connected computer, so my needs may be different from people with longer commutes and spotty internet service.
Anyone concerned about loss of control? (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me cynical, but I'm concerned about loss of control without an actual copy of the music I want. Just like with radio right now, I could listen to [insert popular song of the day] just about any time I want, but come a year or two down the road, and that might not be the case. Add 10 - 20 yrs to that, and the song may be virtually impossible to find. I know that was the case with a number of some of my all-time favorite CDs - it took a lot of work to track them down. I'd rather not "hope" that someone else is making them available down the road - I can make sure I always have them by keeping my own copy.
Is this a video news release? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this a video news release from the cell phone providers?
If their music is constantly available anywhere on any device, then 'what's the difference?,' ponders the article.
The difference is my bandwidth to my phones SD flash card is free, but my cell provider wants me to pay $50 per gig.
Hmm so I could rip a DVD that I own to my phone for free, or I could pay $ to download it over wifi, or I could pay $$$ in bandwidth charges to stream.
Also service sucks everywhere I go, so if I actually want to listen, rather than listen to buffering and pauses, then I need to download first.
Re:Ownership may fade in the short term (Score:4, Insightful)
Certain people also seem to have an interest in grossly overstating the "burden" of ownership. Wasn't the whole point of iTunes in the early days was that it eliminated this "burden of ownership". Wasn't it supposed to make adding a physical copy of music to your electronic library easy and painless?
It seems the marketing propaganda changes to suit whatever the current product is.
Ignore all of those old ads, we have a new gospel for you today.
I don't "maintain" squat. Something gets ripped when I buy it and just sits around. If a device can accommodate my entire music collection, then there is nothing to "manage".
who do you trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you own your own fileserver, like files in particular format and tagged in just the right way, owning is the right option. You're trading the work of doing that yourself for the benefit of having your data the way you like it.
For a lot of people who either aren't capable of managing files or just not interested in doing that work, offloading music to "the cloud" or some streaming service makes sense - trading control for convenience.
I prefer the former option, but can understand the appeal of the latter.
Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Young listeners? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not just my "get off my lawn" mentality either...I hear it from younger people today. They go through tons of music, but it is quite often disposable, I've heard them say.
"Oh, yeah, I'll get this, listen to it for a few months, but doubt I'll throw it on again."
Me? Geez...well, I own most of my music in CD form. I've yet to buy a mp3 off the internet....I'd rather buy in a the best format I can generally get, for home use...and then for lessor listening environments, I rip the music to high quality mp3's....which is plenty good enough for bad listening environments like the gym or the car.
But pretty much everything I've bought...I listen to OVER and over again...and have for decades.
I never get tired of hearing Dark Side of the Moon, or The Wall....and I usually play those in their entirety, from beginning to end since to me..they are whole pieces of music...the whole album is.
I never get tired of Brown Sugar....or the plethora of other Stones songs.
More recently...well, I do like pretty much the whole Wolfmother first album...great stuff. I've found some good bluesmen of today...Guitar Shorty, and Tinsley Ellis.....but yes, most of my stuff is in the electric blues driven classic rock era.
But I find I like to OWN my music...because, it WILL and is often listened to quite often. A lot of the stuff coming out today...well, I don't usually find it to be something I'd listen to over and over again...so, I can sympathize with the kids of today.
I'm trying to figure out...when did music become disposable?
Re:"Liberating" (Score:4, Insightful)
The castration comparison is quite appropriate.
Some people want the ability to choose for themselves and others seem to want total dependence. The idea of becoming a eunuch for the sake of convenience is not far off the mark really.
The founding fathers are spinning in their graves over this "ownership is a burden" rhetoric. It was one of the key things they fought for.
You know... life,liberty, property.
Re:Young people don't drive. (Score:3, Insightful)
I love streaming, but permanent ownership isn't going anywhere, I think.
Indeed. I think TFA draws the wrong conclusion. People prefer the convenience of streaming, but I'm sure they would have preferred ownership if the convenience was the same.
Say there was an audio/video home server that you could buy pre-configured, where all your purchases appeared DRM-free, and you could start accessing the files as they started downloading, not wait until complete. Including a burner with a point-and-click interface for producing DVDs and CDs from your purchases for using elsewhere. That would certainly add value over DRM-laden streaming that you have no assurance whether will be available next year or next month, and can't access anywhere.
Ownership isn't going anywhere; while the new generation might think less ahead than the older ones, they still see a value when it becomes obvious. It's just now that the convenience wins out.
Re:Circles (Score:4, Insightful)
Own phonograph.
Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
Stream from radio.
Oh, I can't decide what I want to hear.
Own a tape/casette/CD.
Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
Stream from TV.
Oh, I can't decide what I want to hear.
Own MP3s.
Oh, it's too much work to manage my collection.
Stream from the net.
Oh great, I can decide what to hear and don't have to manage my own collection!
(Some time in the future)
Oh wait, there was this song I particularly liked. Where has it gone? Maybe I should have my own collection again.
Damn, the RIAA no longer allows me to own!
Re:Young listeners? (Score:5, Insightful)
So are the kids... only it's our generation's music they're listening to over and over again. Go to any live cover band in a bar full of twentysomethings. They're not covering NStynk and Linkin Pork, they're covering Zeppelin and Skynard and Van Halen and the like.
I don't know what Linkin Pork and NStynk is, maybe you're a dumb child and meant NSync and Linkin Park. Anyway, people cover those bands too, you're just not going to the right bar. Is it really surprising that the places you visit cover songs you like? Are you really so dense that you don't realize that the same thing will be happening in other bars with songs you dislike?
Music was always disposable. People recorded over casettes, people listened to songs or bought albums and then shelved them for years. There are some songs out right now that I could see myself listening 30 years from now, even if it's "new stuff". The entire music field isn't just NSync and Lady Gaga. There are also older songs that I'll rock on to. How surprising is this, really?
Your taste changes, it's like food. You don't eat the same thing every week do you? "New music is shit" is a really stupid statement, it's moronic to deep levels. It just means you liked the old style better. You're not different from a lot of other people who also like older music. You'll also find older people hating old music and preferring the new stuff. I heard a grand mother request System of a Down on radio a few years ago, she didn't seem to mind that it wasn't Led Zeppelin.
Oh, I get it. Your tastes are better than everyone else's, and the music you don't like is shit. See the thing is, that applies to you too. Your music is shit and my taste is better than yours.
Young Listeners Also Have Access... (Score:5, Insightful)
Young listeners also lso have access to silly amounts of bandwidth almost without regard to their location. If there's not a WiFi hotspot, then the kid (or Mom/Dad) are paying for a large bandwidth cap on the smartphone.
They don't bother to learn directions anymore or explore because Google Maps or Yelp tell them exactly where to go. They don't wander what their friends are doing, their friends are desperately advertising their locations and activities on Facebook and "young listeners" hear it.
It's not surprise that Gen Y or Millennials are less likely to have their own copies of music. They understand bandwidth and internet access as ubiquitous. Most of us don't. We grew up with low-speed hardline modems, not always on broadband connections. We see wireless internet access as a luxury. They see it as a given.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm no youngster but I hate Dark Side of the Moon. Really can't stand it. I don't mind if I never hear it again.
Music taste is mostly formed when you're a teen. Teens listen to whatever they're surrounded by. Everybody thinks their generation had the best music. ...and 90% of anything is bad.
90% of 60s music was completely awful.
90% of 70s music was completely awful.
90% of 80s music was completely awful.
90% of 90s music was completely awful.
90% of 00s music was completely awful.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's probably the reverse. The people producing music have an incredibly narrow taste, and people tend to burn out quickly when each new song sounds only subtly different from the song that came before it. There are times when it has been so bad that I've sung one song while listening to another just for the entertainment value of poking fun at the awful rehash.
This is not to say that all new music is crap, just that nearly all new music that actually gets airplay is crap. Of course, this has always been true. What makes a song a "classic" is that it is one of the few songs that wasn't crap, and so still gets airplay today (on the right stations). Time has a way of filtering the wheat from the chaff.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is far, far more music being played and recorded today than ever before. If the 90% figure is accurate, then there's far more non-crap music made this year than in 1972, 1982, or 1992. I personally think that's true. People who complain that modern music is throwaway garbage haven't being looking very hard. There's some phenomenal stuff out there and just about any decently sized city has a healthy music scene.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:2, Insightful)
So that's why so many young kids now are listening to 70s and 80s guitar rock with Guitar Hero, right? And I see them all the time at concerts for 70s bands, sitting with their middle-aged parents, when back in my generation we never liked the same music as our parents and certainly wouldn't go to a concert with them?
Sorry, your theory is wrong. Music these days really is much worse.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:2, Insightful)
Justin Beiber wasn't signed. You think any label in their right mind would want that?
He was created. The labels got ahold of someone who is docile and can handle the rigors of being on stage, as well as being fed lyrics, calling those his own.
Justin Beiber was created as a product to address the teeny-bopper market, and has made the labels a lot of cash.
IMHO, These days, record labels are not into signing bands. They seem to be all about getting some marketing experts, creating a band, lyrics and all, just to address some market segment.
Real bands at best might have a slot at SXSW, and that is it. The days of making it big with the lucrative record deal because of the hidden A&R guy at the club are gone, and have been gone since the 1990s.
Re:Young listeners? (Score:4, Insightful)
Although I'm probably in the "bias" set that likes 70's and 80's music, I think a large part of the phenomena is simply shared experience. Back in those days, you had radio payola, and "records" which tended to make music a much more shared experience. Also the numbers of songs in wide release were pretty limited. I knew people back in those days that could literally name just about every single song on every single album in most people's collection, but that was only because everyone bought the same albums.
Fast forward to today and music is much more fragmented and less of a shared experience. Artists that become popular today don't have the selective pressure that they used to. The ones we remember from the 70's and 80's are the survivors that became part of the shared experience (got radio-play and were recorded the albums that everyone bought). You don't remember the ones that didn't make it. Musicians today can survive in a much more narrow niche.
So what songs would concerts gravitate towards? The ones that survived the selective pressure of the shared experience. At least that's my opinion. Of course there's still lots of "live" music, but there were also the precursor to "raves" in the 80's. I don't remember any of those bands, just like I'm sure in 2040 nobody will remember similar contemporary music. On the other hand, I can see Coldplay, being at least as popular as say R.E.M. in the long run...
Maybe there's no Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, or Beatles bands in the wings, but that's probably because nobody seems to play their own instruments anymore... As for guitar hero, name a few popular artists today that play their own music on a guitar... That's why they have 70's and 80's bands..