Fresh from announcing changes to Amazon Music’s basic tier for Prime members, the company’s music boss Steve Boom sat down with The Verge for a long interview yesterday. He’s interesting on how streaming needs to evolve.
“In terms of recorded music, if you’re paying a flat fee per month, the two ways that we can put more money in the hands of musicians are to have more subscribers — so that the total amount of money available is bigger — or to have a higher price. Those are the two levers you have,” said Boom.
But he suggested that it is time to move on from “a streaming service 1.0 world” to explore wider models.
“When I talk to my team about 2.0, it’s like, ‘We need to think about a streaming service as not just being a catalog of recorded music, but being a host of services that connect artists and fans together’. You’ve seen some of the things we’re doing there; we have invested heavily in livestreaming and in merch. So yes, there is a fixed pool of money in recorded music, but the pool keeps growing, right? It’s fixed per customer, but when you get into areas like merch, there are unlimited amounts that people are willing to spend to connect with their favourite artist and to represent their fandom.”
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