On April 28th of this year iTunes will complete its eleventh birthday and what an eleven years its been. A simple concept of 99-cent singles completely rocked the music industry. Very few concepts have been able to accomplish as much as iTunes in such a small time frame. This simple concept came as a blessing to music lovers and served as a nuclear bomb for the music industry. Revenue was cut in half for the music industry since the birth of iTunes.
Apple orchestrated the perfect storm on the music industry. The iPod was already making quite a splash on the music scene and a runaway hit in it’s right. With such a good base to launch its product, iTunes was a clinical in complementing this one-two punch. One without the other would’ve stunted the growth of the monsters that we know so well today. The dynamic duo didn’t just revolutionize music sales, it simply destroyed it.
Could music sales ever make a comeback? Most experts think not. Most artist have turned to touring, merchandise sales, and endorsement deals to make up the difference from the loss in revenue. Funny how the world turns. The ones that are in risk of losing its grip in today’s music market is Apple itself. Streaming music services like Spotify attempt to bring more stability to the a seemingly Apple dominated field. Can Apple maintain its superiority on music? It will depend on its ability to transition to the streaming subscription model. One thing is certain, the music industry will never be the same.
Crazy to think that iTunes has been operating for 11 years, but I think that iTunes will remain superior for a while even with the popularity of Spotify. I think that because of how easy iTunes is to operate and how quickly they have made new music that that has helped them maintain some loyal customers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the simplicity of iTunes and how it revolutionized the music market to make sharing and buying music easy. Just about everybody has an iTunes, my lime-wire was connected to download music straight to my iTunes account. But since the fall of lime-wire, my iTunes account has been pretty weak because music is becoming easier to find, though streaming music services. So i also agree that the music industry will never be the same.
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