Once streaming officially took over the music listening business, the wins for consumers grew far and few between. First came the elimination of free streaming, and now we are watching the death of freemium as well. Then came the move started by TIDAL that irked consumers most of all, exclusives. Now if you want to have a full library, it’s impossible without signing up for multiple services. It was business moves like this that had consumers ready to go back to Zippyshare.
Now, in the wake of Frank Ocean’s exclusive album release on Apple Music, Universal Music Group is taking a stand and us consumers should applaud them. Universal has outlawed the company’s label from negotiating exclusives with streaming platforms like TIDAL. CEO Lucian Grainge distributed a newsletter where he wisely detailed how these exclusives are hurting the music industry and explained that there is currently an aggressive move to get everybody onto a subscription by hiding the best content behind a paywall. It’s been a while since the music industry did something so actively consumer-friendly, and we can hope that this trend continues.
Source: The Guardian
