Whether it was what she intended or not, Taylor Swift threw down the “exclusive” gauntlet with her 2014 Wall Street Journal op-ed about the future of streaming services. In it, she referred to music as something “important and rare,” and therefore, “valuable.” She was arguing about something only tangentially related to streaming exclusives, but she was also framing a mindset towards music that would morph into the industry standard over the next two years. And last summer, when she gave only Apple permission to stream her album 1989, she planted the seed of a powerful idea. In 2016, another year of war between the big three on-demand streaming services (Tidal, Apple Music, Spotify), having “important” and “rare” and “valuable” things like exclusive new albums from music’s biggest stars are the ultimate edge. While streaming was meant to make music more accessible and convenient, it’s now creating a series of walled gardens — beautiful houses for rare and important art. Let’s check in on how that’s affecting consumers and the industry at large.
