Spotify, the world’s biggest streaming music service, is and always has been unprofitable. Maybe that’ll change in 2017? The RIAA cautioned people that the industry’s recovery from it steep losses in the mid-aughts “is fragile and fraught with risk.” Sales of CDs and song downloads are declining fast, especially as Apple more heavily favors its streaming service over iTunes. Digital music is hard.
Pandora, one of the first services to offer streaming radio and formerly the music industry’s archenemy, just released an on-demand streaming service that faces stiff competition from Spotify and Apple Music. Investors are pressuring Pandora to sell itself, just as the company started to be on better terms with the recording industry.
Some things don’t change, though. The music industry is still mad at YouTube for how little it pays artists:
Source: The Music Industry Kind Of Likes Streaming Now, But It’s Still Nervous