The streaming curve: streaming, the S curve and super-abundance

Lovett, M ORCID: 0000-0003-3599-7886 (2024) 'The streaming curve: streaming, the S curve and super-abundance.' In: Gullö, J-O, Hepworth-Sawyer, R, Paterson, J, Toulson, R and Marrington, M, eds. Innovation in music: adjusting perspectives. Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 11-25. ISBN 9781032500249

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Abstract

Among their predictions for developments in the music industry in 2023, the music and entertainment industry research and analysis company, MIDiA Research, suggested that 2023 would mark the end of the era of disruption. Digital streaming platforms (DSPs) such as Spotify are no longer the insurgent disruptors, rewriting the rules on access to music by creating new markets for music consumption and new opportunities for creators to connect with and build their audiences. Instead, as industry incumbents, it may be that DSPs themselves are now in danger of being disrupted themselves by a range of challenges and new industry paradigms. This chapter tracks the development, and current challenges facing the conventional streaming models and uses the virologist Jonas Salk’s theory of the ‘S curve’ to articulate a pattern of change in streaming over its more than 25 year history. In the early 1980s, Salk, along with his son, developed the notion of the S curve as a way of looking at social and economic development, proposing that societal development does not always move forward in a straight line. If we apply the S curve’s basic principles of rapid growth, slow-down and plateau to streaming’s developmental trajectory, then the image of a ‘streaming curve’ enables us to understand the complexities of this trajectory, and to consider the likelihood and potential characteristics of any oncoming transition.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Divisions:	Bath School of Music and Performing Arts
Related URLs:	https://www.routledge.com/Innovation-in-...
Date Deposited:	31 Oct 2024 17:41
Last Modified:	08 Jan 2025 17:37
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/16648

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