Last week, the WWE and Spotify announced a deal where Spotify’s The Ringer will team up with the WWE to launch “an exclusive audio network.” I’d guess eventually this includes Spotify exclusive podcasts, but right now the partnership includes new (non-exclusive) podcasts and after PPV live reaction shows (done through Spotify Greenroom, which is like Twitter Spaces.
I'm also long a small amount of SPOT and share your opinions on the bull case, but the concern that has thus far led me to not increase beyond a starter position is competition from the crypto/NFT space and/or Square/Tidal. Chris Dixon put out a nice thread on this recently "Web 3 - your take rate is my opportunity." To be fair, Dixon's hypothesis could be applied to any social media platform with an advertising business model and also represents a risk to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1425645850672308225
From Dixon's tweet: "Today there are over 8 million musicians on streaming services, yet less than 15,000 musicians (less that 0.2%) make more than $50K/year. That’s because the vast majority of the revenue is kept by the streaming services and music labels. With NFTs, musicians keep over 90% of sales. By cutting out layers of intermediaries, musicians can credibly support themselves with just a thousand true fans."
One project in the space is Audius (AUDIO) which was described today by Packy McCormick in Not Boring as web3 Soundcloud. After inking a deal with TikTok AUDIO's market cap recently surged above $1B - there's real traction here and it's soooooooooo early!
With Square/Tidal, the concern is that if the whole music rights/labels/streaming ecosystem is disrupted by web 3, Square/Tidal seems much better positioned to recognize/catalyze the shift and accrue value on their platform vs. Spotify.
Idk what this all is going to look like yet, I don't think anyone does but at this point I don't think it's a negligible tail risk that the whole music rights/labels/streaming ecosystem is completely disrupted by web 3 within the next decade.
How do they monetize in this future way in a way that's different from current?
Right now, musicians make tons of monetization outside streaming. Concerts, merch sales, sposnorships. Streaming is in many ways a loss leader for musicians to acquire fans and then monetize them, except its a loss leader that gives them money.
I don't doubt that NFTs will be great for artists with passionate fans, but to break SPOT / the labels you need to find a way to monetize streams better t han current. I strongly doubt that happens. Now, maybe you can find a way to cut labels out, but that would be great for SPOT.
Isn't one of the challenges for SPOT breaking into the non-entertainment sector? They're strong in music and podcasting but those are all mainly creator direct to consumer. The advantage Twitter has in spaces is that there's a pre-existing network of finance tweeters who are used to the interactive format, jumping to audio is simple from there.
The likely end-state in podcast monetization is a SPOT/SIRI duopoly. SIRI has thus far been the unquestioned champion at turning (speech) audio into EBITDA.
Did you mean to say Lucifer twice in the manifest example sentence?
I'm also long a small amount of SPOT and share your opinions on the bull case, but the concern that has thus far led me to not increase beyond a starter position is competition from the crypto/NFT space and/or Square/Tidal. Chris Dixon put out a nice thread on this recently "Web 3 - your take rate is my opportunity." To be fair, Dixon's hypothesis could be applied to any social media platform with an advertising business model and also represents a risk to Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. https://twitter.com/cdixon/status/1425645850672308225
From Dixon's tweet: "Today there are over 8 million musicians on streaming services, yet less than 15,000 musicians (less that 0.2%) make more than $50K/year. That’s because the vast majority of the revenue is kept by the streaming services and music labels. With NFTs, musicians keep over 90% of sales. By cutting out layers of intermediaries, musicians can credibly support themselves with just a thousand true fans."
One project in the space is Audius (AUDIO) which was described today by Packy McCormick in Not Boring as web3 Soundcloud. After inking a deal with TikTok AUDIO's market cap recently surged above $1B - there's real traction here and it's soooooooooo early!
With Square/Tidal, the concern is that if the whole music rights/labels/streaming ecosystem is disrupted by web 3, Square/Tidal seems much better positioned to recognize/catalyze the shift and accrue value on their platform vs. Spotify.
Idk what this all is going to look like yet, I don't think anyone does but at this point I don't think it's a negligible tail risk that the whole music rights/labels/streaming ecosystem is completely disrupted by web 3 within the next decade.
Do you have thoughts on this?
It soudns nice but I 100% disagree.
How do they monetize in this future way in a way that's different from current?
Right now, musicians make tons of monetization outside streaming. Concerts, merch sales, sposnorships. Streaming is in many ways a loss leader for musicians to acquire fans and then monetize them, except its a loss leader that gives them money.
I don't doubt that NFTs will be great for artists with passionate fans, but to break SPOT / the labels you need to find a way to monetize streams better t han current. I strongly doubt that happens. Now, maybe you can find a way to cut labels out, but that would be great for SPOT.
Say what you want about $WWE but they try to be as creative as possible. One of the things I love about em
Isn't one of the challenges for SPOT breaking into the non-entertainment sector? They're strong in music and podcasting but those are all mainly creator direct to consumer. The advantage Twitter has in spaces is that there's a pre-existing network of finance tweeters who are used to the interactive format, jumping to audio is simple from there.
The likely end-state in podcast monetization is a SPOT/SIRI duopoly. SIRI has thus far been the unquestioned champion at turning (speech) audio into EBITDA.