Spotify: Make Money with Analogue Scarcity

This isn't another post about Spotify: it's a perceptive comment made by the company's CEO during an interview:

Q: We’ve heard services like Spotify people say “oh no we’re not going to buy music any more”. The idea of geting people to play a monthly fee, that seems promising. Why would someone buy something?

A: I think we’re going that route. But we find that music I really love, I tend to want to buy it. Not necessarily a plastic disk, but a special edition for an artist I really like, I’m more than happy to pay $100 for a box set with a t-shirt in it, liner notes. Another person may be willing to pay for a live edition with extended tracks. Or pay for a live concert experience. The reality of the music industry today is that there isn’t one biz model. It’s about figuring out how to use downloads, streaming, promotion, ticketing, all these things. I don’t think streaming music is stream.. with Spotify people label us ‘free’ music. But people pay, either with time (adverts, which are targeting), or actually paying for the service.

Of course, this is exactly what many of us have been saying for a while, and it's good that someone behind one of the more interesting new offerings seems to get this.

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