I love how this story weaves the changes of an industry around a single life who anticipated, benefited, and eventually fell behind the trends of how we get music, movies, and media. I still remember buying bootleg "VCDs" in Hong Kong back in 2001.
When it comes to how the music industry's changed as a whole, I think two charts tell the story:
1. RIAA-tracked (North American) music sales have fallen from a high of $14 billion in 1999 to only about $6 billion today, even with downloads included. [1]
2. At the same time, concert ticket sales have gone up from $1.5 to $7.5 billion, offsetting three-quarters of the drop in music sales. [2]
It's an incredible shift in how the industry works, and explains the rise of Live Nation/Ticketmaster, Spotify (why are music publishers and others are more willing to give away music?). The winners and losers have changed, but the music keeps playing.
[1] https://blog.thecurrent.org/2014/02/40-years-of-album-sales-...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/306065/concert-ticket-sa...
When it comes to how the music industry's changed as a whole, I think two charts tell the story:
1. RIAA-tracked (North American) music sales have fallen from a high of $14 billion in 1999 to only about $6 billion today, even with downloads included. [1]
2. At the same time, concert ticket sales have gone up from $1.5 to $7.5 billion, offsetting three-quarters of the drop in music sales. [2]
It's an incredible shift in how the industry works, and explains the rise of Live Nation/Ticketmaster, Spotify (why are music publishers and others are more willing to give away music?). The winners and losers have changed, but the music keeps playing.
[1] https://blog.thecurrent.org/2014/02/40-years-of-album-sales-...
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/306065/concert-ticket-sa...