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Music Streaming Is Hot, But It Can't Skip a Beat
An estimated 100 million people pay to listen each month, but the model is still shaky.
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Long a symbol of internet-era value destruction, the music industry has scratched and clawed its way to an impressive milestone: an estimated 100 million people now have streaming music subscriptions that they pay for each month. That’s more than the number of people who subscribe to Netflix.
But it’s still too soon to declare the job done. Although revenue is finally growing again for the big record labels, the music streaming industry is on the verge of a shakeout that could eliminate smaller players like SoundCloud.