All posts tagged: streaming media

Posted on Nov 26, 2025 at 13:11 by scott truitt

It happens every week now. Something nudges this post from Andy Dunn about the four words behind his CEO job description to the forefront of my mind, and before I know it, I’m saying them out loud again: 1. Create hope. 2. Define reality. They are deceptively simple in isolation but uniquely challenging in tandem. Staying firmly grounded between these two extremes requires the ability to see the world as it clearly is today and project how it could be tomorrow with time, energy, and money. Th

Posted on Aug 11, 2025 at 13:10 by scott truitt

The dominant social and streaming services created a model in which only a handful of companies benefit from the creation and consumption of all music.

Posted on Jul 2, 2025 at 05:43 by scott truitt

Modern music has always had someone or something—labels, agents, lawyers, managers, publicists, distributors, and more—between artists and fans. Many are thoughtful and transformative. Some are dreadful and destructive. However, even the worst of all is no match for today’s dominant intermediaries, social and streaming companies. They emerged over the last decade with weaponised technology, unprecedented reach, and brazen leaders willing to do anything for power and profit. And they are destro

Posted on Jun 5, 2025 at 06:03 by scott truitt

“We pay a fortune for such a poor experience.” That was one of the first problem statements I wrote in the early days of Sawtooth last year. It referred to the enshitification of Spotify and other social and streaming services. It still resonates today for unexpected reasons. Now it’s the proliferation of mindless AI-generated art, music, and writing. Nothing prepared me for how quickly this slop would invade these human spaces, how willing so many would be to welcome it, and how much it wou

Posted on Apr 15, 2025 at 07:39 by scott truitt

Social media promised to bring people together, but the powers that be decided it was more profitable to tear us apart. Streaming media promised to help artists live off their art, but the powers that be decided it was more profitable to cheat them out of a living. People who wanted absolute power and profit at any cost made these decisions. They built systems to exploit the rest of us. They did not care about humanity or take any personal responsibility. However, people with different values

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 at 08:39 by scott truitt

I could write volumes (and already have) about the insights Mark Mulligan shared in his post on LinkedIn yesterday (this post is a response, and I even used the same title to anchor it). I want to focus on three things that resonated most: 1. When you read artist-centric licensing, you should translate that to UMG and Spotify-centric licensing, as “UMG and Spotify get richer, and the rest, well, who really cares?” See the shocking number Mark Johnson shared on LinkedIn yesterday about the effe

Posted on Mar 17, 2025 at 09:17 by scott truitt

Spotify likes to tell its story about the democratisation of music and money, but its strategy of rewarding only those at the top hides in plain sight. Last week’s Loud and Clear report noted that 12 million artists uploaded music to Spotify in 2024, but only 0.6% generated more than $10,000 in royalties. Let me be clear: artists who generate $10,000 in royalties do not earn $10,000 in income. They likely receive a tiny fraction of that after all their costs. And even if they did earn $10,000

Posted on Jan 2, 2025 at 09:06 by scott truitt

Enshitification was my favourite word last year, but I only recently realised that it is hiding deeper and darker truths about the concentration of wealth and power. Now that I see it, it’s everywhere, and I want you to see it, too. The idea behind enshitification is simple: as platforms gain users (aka customers and partners), the service, experience, and value they receive degrade while the costs of using the platform increase. That fact alone is awful and a reason to rebel. But there’s