Only $12 billion of the industry’s annual $43 billion take goes to musicians. When it came to enhancing the Web3 NFT music experience, we needed to explore new models and options. While services like Spotify and Apple Music continue to attract a sizable audience, few Web3 streaming platforms and NFT marketplaces have emerged to become formidable competitors in recent years. Sites like these are especially useful for solo artists because they make it easier to try new strategies for building an audience, spreading their music, and even getting paid in cryptocurrency through the blockchain.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) interactions are facilitated by the decentralized design of Web3 streaming platform and NFTs. These innovations empower musicians to reclaim control over their creations and earnings by eliminating intermediaries (like Apple Music and Spotify).
Revenue Generation from Web 2.0 Streaming Services
- Amazon Music’s per-stream fee is $0.004. 250 concurrent viewers are required to make $1.
- Apple Music’s per-stream fee is $0.007. 143 views are required to make a dollar.
- It costs Spotify $0.004 per music stream. There must be 229 live feeds to make a dollar.
- If your song is streamed one time on SoundCloud, you’ll make $0.003. There must be 305 concurrent views to make a dollar.
- The royalty rate for YouTube Music videos is $0.008 per stream. There needs to be 125 going to make a dollar.
- With Pandora, you’ll get paid $0.00133 per stream. There must be 752 live broadcasts in progress to make $1.
- At iHeartRadio, each stream is worth $0.017. There must be 59 going at once to make a dollar.
Web 3.0? What exactly is that?
Web 3.0, also known as “web3,” is the most recent version of the Internet, and it is characterized by its use of decentralized data connections to boost speed and individualization. The blockchain security system is used to keep your information safe. Web3 is built upon AI, ML, and the semantic web.
What makes Web 3.0 so revolutionary for its users is its emphasis on decentralization, openness, and practicality.
Web 3.0’s Most Important Features
- It’s open because it was developed by a team of programmers who are easily accessible to the public using open-source tools.
- Users don’t have to worry about an invasive third party using the network to share and conceal information freely.
- There is no need for anyone involved (providing or receiving services or using the services) to get permission from a higher authority.
- As a result of Web 3.0, we can all log on to the Internet whenever and wherever we want. Web 2.0 restricts Internet access to desktop and mobile devices, but that may change in the future.
What Web 3.0 Means for Streaming Services
For those who may not be aware, we are currently in the Web 2.0 era. Without the current iteration of the Internet, social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok would not exist. However, the “centralization” of the web results from the proliferation of these social media sites.
Many of the most profitable businesses in the twenty-first century are highly reliant on their platform.
In Web 3.0, social interactions will still happen online, but without the oversight of the mega-corporations that dominate Web 2.0 today.
This puts the power back in the hands of the people, the musicians, and the fans. To this end, we plan to implement blockchain technologies, which provide the framework for a decentralized web that will benefit the creative community and its members.
Decentralization helps artists because it gives them more control over their careers and direct access to their fans.
Web 3.0’s Potential to Improve Audio/Video Search Results
One must be familiar with the inner workings of current music and video streaming platforms before understanding the potential effects of decentralized streaming on the industry.
Streaming services like Spotify, Netflix, and Apple Music can choose between curated playlists and similar content.
The problem with the first is that well-known artists are always included in such polls. There is no future for independent musicians and artists. The situation in the second scenario is intrinsically linked to gathering the data.
Machine learning algorithms can also be helpful to decentralized streaming services in this regard.
Decentralized platforms can infer a user’s preferred musical genre based on the user’s listening and viewing habits. If you permit them to access your listening data, they can start suggesting songs and artists that you might enjoy to other users who share your taste. By making these changes, you’ll have a much easier time discovering new music and creating custom playlists.
More people will hear your music naturally, which is great news if you’re a musician.
New Revenue Streams
One of the most intriguing aspects of Web3 is the prospect of expanded opportunities for content creators to monetize their efforts through a variety of new distribution channels and business models.
The blockchain records every transaction involving the artwork, so you know exactly what your artwork is worth and whether or not it has been counterfeited.
Artists will have the ability to track the ever-changing value of their work and profit from each sale. Where once an artist might have sold an artwork for $10,000 that later netted some dealer $1 million, NFTs guarantee the artist is given credit for all sales made throughout the work’s lifetime and can establish a royalty of up to 10%.
Web3 Streaming Services
Audius Music
The platform’s core is a public blockchain-based music streaming protocol that is completely decentralized. This goal is to give musicians more control over the distribution of their music and more information about who is streaming it.
Free music distribution is available to artists, and the team promises this will always be the case. Additionally, unlike competing music streaming services, Audius does not deduct a fee from each artist’s earnings.
Emanate
Emanate is a blockchain-based music streaming service that works similarly to Audius. Based on EOSIO, it accepts payments made with the $EMT token. Any user with access to an EOS mainnet block explorer, such as Bloks.io or EOSX.io, can view the transactions made with either the EMT token or the stable internal token.
In contrast to Audius, which only uses a rewards system for artists to earn crypto at the moment, Emanate pays artists in its native token per stream. You can also join the Emanate Music Lovers group for only $6 per month. Five dollars of every dollar the company makes goes to the musicians.
OPUS
OPUS is the decentralized platform you need when it comes to sharing and listening to music. The Interplanetary File System is used to store music, and the platform is built on the Ethereum blockchain (IPFS). The platform uses the IPFS to provide decentralized delivery of thousands of tracks per second. The company says the decryption keys and file hashes are stored in smart contracts, and that’s how users listen to music. The smart contracts also allow listeners to compensate musicians for their work fairly.
BPM
SongCamp developed the BPM music NFT Discord bot. You can install this bot into your Discord server, which will play music NFTs that you have created in Catalog, Zora, Sound, or any other supported services.
Although BPM isn’t a standard streaming platform, it can help reach your target audience by streaming tracks that have already been minted as NFTs.
Conclusion
Benefits will accrue to early adopters of Web3 streaming services and music NFTs. Even though it is not yet certain that these Web3 streaming platforms and NFTs will surpass legacy services like Spotify or Apple Music, it makes sense for working producers, musicians, and vocalists to investigate these options now.
