The listening culture is shifting to a new direction, as music streaming slowly becomes the norm.
DJ robots rise, as curated playlists becomes the standard. The digital landscape has provided innovative ways to give music lovers easy access to free sonic ecstasy; rapidly changing the way people seek what they want to listen to. People demand playlists customized by their chosen music app for free. They trust recommendations made by smart computer algorithms that analyze tastes and listening habits.
Sound quality would be constantly undermined. Widely used music streaming services like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube satisfy this hunger for personalization but, oftentimes, to the detriment of the dignity of sound quality. Focus on compression, portability and "sharability" takes a critical toll to the overall auditory experience.
"The music industry's focus on mobile has resulted in an array of acoustically compromised scenarios. Music enthusiasts have been forced to piece together dysfunctional home audio systems - iPhones plugged into ancient stereos, portable Bluetooth boxes originally intended for beach and barbecue, blaringly inadequate laptop speakers," CEO of Sonos John MacFarlane said.
More intimate artist-fan relationships emerge. The social aspect of music streaming apps makes it easier for artists to connect with their fans and allows them to define how they want to interact with their followers.
"Another fundamental shift lies in music creators finding new ways to be heard and to build deeper, more connected relationships with their audience," MacFarlene said.
Old media paradigms would go obsolete. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek envisaged a future where all media channel distinctions would collapse and converge into one.
"The old-world paradigms we used to have are no longer true. When I think about music in the future, I don't make a distinction between what's radio, what used to be the music library, and so on," Ek said as reported by The Guardian
