Almost five years ago I got very excited when I first stumbled upon Spotify. I wrote that I had seen the future. It’s great that at least the odd prediction actually comes true. Spotify is not the future anymore but very much the present.
Some artists resisted at length but recently some of the biggest acts in the history of popular music like Metallica and Pink Floyd have released their work on Spotify. Even my old hero Frank Zappa has appeared there lately.
There are a few that are still in the trenches against streaming music, most notably the Beatles.
This is my new prediction: those that are not on Spotify will slowly slip into oblivion because Spotify (or other similar services) is what the new generation uses to listen to music (and a few of us 50+ also). Nobody buys CDs or bother to either buy or download illegally mp3:s anymore. Spotify is so much simpler.
The balance of power has shifted to where the listeners have gone. My kids know very little about The Beatles but they know quite a bit about Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, and Jethro Tull.