Has the internet has entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits?

"The internet has entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits."

"Listeners are easy to reach but hard to retain." If one quote could sum up the modern music industry, it would be this. In days gone by, record stores would be abound with all types of people buying all types of records. Records eventually ceded to cassettes, which gave way to CDs, which eventually led us to the golden era of the internet and the dawn of digital MP3 distribution. Options popped up left, right and centre, suddenly a whole world of music entertainment was a few keystrokes away.

If we hark back to the 1900s, we think of the age of records and cassettes. Vinyl was available in, quite literally, all shapes, sizes and colours. Even today, some swear by their vast record collection, sometimes 10s or 100s of thousands of records. Some, however, leave them to collect dust in the cold attic as they move on to more up-to-date methods of buying music. There is still something to be said for vinyl and cassettes, perhaps the tangibility of the record sparks a bit of excitement in the consumer, or maybe it's the exclusivity of records these days. Quite a selection of artists still press a small amount of vinyl for those that want it to collect, listen or admire on a shelf. Cassettes are also still made, although not as widely re-adopted by artists. Some may argue that the sound quality is lacking, although if made well and to a good standard they can sound just as good.

Everyone was sitting quite happily with their warehouses worth of vinyl and tapes. Then the internet was conceived and the music industry jumped on board. Music started being produced and distributed through this magical new format and suddenly the hardcore collectors could have their music collection digitally, all in one place. It revolutionised music distribution with the new M-PEGs and now everyone could be a DJ with the ease of access to music. The cost of pressing vinyl or recording tapes didn't need to be included into a song or album and it was even cheaper to get music. Everyone had the ability to become a hardcore collector of music and have just as much music in one night as someone who had spent hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds every month on records to create their coveted collection. As well, sometime around the release of the internet, CDs were released as a new way to physically distribute music. Much smaller than vinyl and easier to produce than cassettes, it quickly became popular for more than just music. They were much more durable than both forms as well.

With the release of CDs came the downfall of vinyl and cassettes. Why buy a massive record when 4 CDs could take up the same amount of space as one record? Records were left in the dust, along with tapes. They became deprecated and the new kid on the block started completely replacing them on shop shelves. However, we've seen the resurgence of the old formats recently for those who love the exclusivity of the record and claim it to be the purest form of music consumption.

Along with the internet came many services to get and manage music. Probably most notably, iTunes. It came with the iTunes Store, which launched in 2003; virtually anything could be found on it. It became the counterpart to the new iPod, which was launched 2 years before hand: a small device to store hundreds of thousands of songs and listen to the collection anywhere. The iPod stood out among MP3 players of the time due to it's capacity and accompanying software. Other competitors, such as the Zune from Microsoft, tried their best to keep up, but especially in the case of the Zune, crashed and burned. The iPod evolved and became smaller and more portable and it became easy to carry a massive music library anywhere.

But then, seemingly from on high came the answer to everyone's prayers and problems: streaming. Why bother buying CDs or vinyl when you can have all your favourite artists and albums in one place, for free. However, this revelation also heralded the era of "freemium"; while you could still access the content on services like Spotify, you were given ads between songs, a limited amound of skips, you had to be connected to the internet to listen and some or all of things added up and weren't an option to some people. Of course, they could always just pay the subscription fee to Spotify and be freed of their limits. Artists got a cut of any profits made. Spotify took about 30% while the artists got approximately 70%. Similar services started appearing, subscription-based or otherwise. Many pay for the premium benefits of Spotify, while others are quite content with the ads so they don't have to pay. Overall, music is incredibly easy to access these days, with an abundance of options.

Although, perhaps it is too easy to access. Piracy was another contributor to the umpteen ways to get music due to the internet. It quickly became popular and had the added benefit of being completely free. Subsections such as private trackers grew and became increasing widespread. Users could get more or less every song under the sun without paying a penny and still in CD quality or better, although users should beware of viruses and malware that lurk within. Companies producing the music took a loss of profits due to the newfangled bitTorrent and its mass userbase. So, they had to fight back. From the suits in a corporate boardroom came DRM, or Digital Rights Management. The be-all and end-all of digital music. This was slapped onto every MP3 that left the studio and prevented the pirates from simply copying the music over and sharing it out for free by the way of some technological trickery. Piracy, it seemed then, was doomed. Until someone cracked the special code on it and the torrenters were free once more. Since then it has been a constant back and forth battle between corporation and consumer to release a new, bigger, better and ultra-secure DRM and crack it.

If we delve into the realms of indie music production, however, one site exists that was made almost entirely for this group: Bandcamp. Bandcamp is the way for the idols of tomorrow to get their music bought and get themselves up and running and get the recognition they need. Bandcamp gives 85% of the profits to the artist, more than other sites are giving. It offers the artists the ability to put up their music for whatever price they want, or even allow the users to pay what they want. They could pay £1, or £1000 if they really wanted (and their pockets were deep enough). It also lets users stream the music that they have bought from a variety of devices and download it in a variety of formats, and for some bigger artists even get a vinyl of the album.

So, has the internet entirely been a force for good in the transformation of audience's music consumption habits? Well, it is still up for debate. Both good things and bad things have came of the conception of the internet, for example, streaming and pirating. However, in my opinion, it has leaned more towards the "yes" side. With the internet came a new way to get music and made it more widely accessible. No matter who you were, you could get the music you wanted and listen to it wherever you wanted. Music became more personalised and you didn't have to wait to get home to listen to your collection. With services like YouTube you could preview albums or songs before you bought them to ensure you weren't wasting your money on an album you didn't like. Almost unintentionally, the internet brought about an ecosystem of "try-before-you-buy". While I personally don't use them, streaming services also made music easier to access and brought about a great way to try new music. Everyone has their individual way to listen to music, and most of them involve the internet at some stage. Everyone's music consumption habits have been changed; and it's hard to argue that it's for the worst.