I mostly agree with you there. If you look at pop music as a whole, it's impossible to attack them directly.
But I don't think that the moat could never be broken. You have many people that consume music as background noises. But you also have many people that are passionate about the music they listen to and would like to have another way to support their artist of choices other than going to concerts (see vinyl revival etc).
My recipe to break the moat:
- choose a genre some people care strongly about (for me, that was classical)
- make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like)
- progressively signup labels by showing there is more money on your platform than on streaming services, they will progressively remove more and more of their catalog from streaming services if they were on them.
- once the model is proven on that genre, move to another (jazz, serious pop etc)
- as time goes by, the value of your service increase and while the value of the streaming services is lowered due to their catalog shrinking.
While this might be a fantasy, the truth is that today system continue to reward popular artists only, niche genre artists can't make a living from streaming. If a solution arises for them, they will come progressively, and over time it will weaken the streaming service moat.
> make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like)
Why would consumers not just pay for physical media like CDs/Vinyl/etc. if they prefer owning things?
But I don't think that the moat could never be broken. You have many people that consume music as background noises. But you also have many people that are passionate about the music they listen to and would like to have another way to support their artist of choices other than going to concerts (see vinyl revival etc).
My recipe to break the moat:
- choose a genre some people care strongly about (for me, that was classical)
- make a platform that offer a better UX for that genre, and have them pay for their music (those consumer are happy because better UX and they feel they actually support the artist they like)
- progressively signup labels by showing there is more money on your platform than on streaming services, they will progressively remove more and more of their catalog from streaming services if they were on them.
- once the model is proven on that genre, move to another (jazz, serious pop etc)
- as time goes by, the value of your service increase and while the value of the streaming services is lowered due to their catalog shrinking.
While this might be a fantasy, the truth is that today system continue to reward popular artists only, niche genre artists can't make a living from streaming. If a solution arises for them, they will come progressively, and over time it will weaken the streaming service moat.