Apple and the Music Industry

On April 28, 2003, Apple Inc. released iTunes, and the music industry was changed forever. Originally dubbed the "World's Best and Easiest To Use Jukebox Software," it allowed users to purchase digital copies of a single song, rather than having to purchase a full album. This was immensely popular for consumers, as the concept of buying single songs for $0.99 was much more appealing than being forced to purchase the full album. According to some, music artists and labels had to change the way they approached making music. Beforehand, since consumers could only buy the entire album at a time, artists would produce a few hit songs, and then fill an album with effortless songs, knowing people would buy albums just to hear a few of the songs. After people were capable of buying individual ones, artist mindsets had to change. More and more musicians began creating hit singles and focusing much less on creating albums, ending the multiple decade long album era.

iTunes opened the world music to a new form of distribution. Many small companies now had an outlet to distribute music through, and artists became less dependent on large recordings companies. Many physical retail stores and big labels were slowly dying off as singers were increasingly able to produce and sell music by themselves.

Recently, as competition is always rampant in popular industries, more and more companies began showing up to fight for the emerging space of music streaming. Services such as Spotify, released in 2008, provided music, videos, and podcasts from different media companies. It introduced a "freemium" service, where basic features were available for free, while those who wanted additional ones could pay subscriptions. Companies like Tidal also emerged, catering to audiophiles, a group of people enthused about high-fidelity music reproduction.

Today, over 250 million people subscribe to music streaming services worldwide, and a study revealed that in America alone, nearly 1.15 trillion songs were streamed in 2019, which would be roughly 3500 songs per American in a year.

Sources:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/11/itunes-through-the-ages/
https://www.aimm.edu/blog/how-itunes-changed-the-music-industry
https://www.statista.com/chart/14647/music-streams-in-the-united-states/
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/itunes-app
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes