Changing Their Tune: How Consumers’ Adoption of Online Streaming Affects Music Consumption and Discovery

Abstract

Abstract. Instead of purchasing individual content, streaming adopters rent access to libraries from which they can consume content at no additional cost. In this paper, we study how the adoption of music streaming affects listening behavior. Using a unique panel data set of individual consumers' listening histories across many digital music platforms, adoption of streaming leads to very large increases in the quantity and diversity of consumption in the first months after adoption. Although the effects attenuate over time, even after half a year, adopters play substantially more, and more diverse, music. Relative to music ownership, where experimentation is expensive, adoption of streaming increases new music discovery. While repeat listening to new music decreases, users' best discoveries have higher play rates. We discuss the implications for consumers and producers of music.

Access-Based Services as Substitutes for Material Possessions: The Role of Psychological Ownership

“…Studies of consumer motives for using ABS (e.g., Bardhi and Eckhardt 2012; Belk 2014; Lamberton and Rose 2012; Wittkowski, Moeller, and Wirtz 2013) often note the negative utility of material possessions (i.e., “burdens of ownership”; Schaefers, Lawson, and Kukar-Kinney 2016), arguing that consumers seemingly should prefer access-based consumption (e.g., Bardhi and Eckhardt 2017; Lamberton and Rose 2012; Lawson et al 2016; Moeller and Wittkowski 2010). Other studies offer empirical evidence that ABS consumption relates negatively to material ownership (e.g., Datta, Knox, and Bronnenberg 2017; Hennig-Thurau, Henning, and Sattler 2007; Liebowitz 2008; Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf 2007; Zervas, Proserpio, and Byers 2017). Yet we argue that most investigations take a one-sided perspective, investigating how diminished importance of material possessions might affect consumers’ ABS adoption (e.g., Schaefers, Lawson, and Kukar-Kinney 2016) rather than how to make ABS more appealing.…”

“I will survive”: Online streaming and the chart survival of music tracks

“…Digital streaming has been found to be associated with a greater diversity and variety of material than other music markets (Datta, Knox, & Bronnenberg, 2018). Online platforms offer niche products new opportunities to capture a share of the long tail of market demand, with the popularity of such products having been shown to increase with the volume and quantity of the product assortment, as well as with the presence of recommender systems (Hinz, Eckert, & Skiera, 2011).…”

“…However, digital streaming works differently in that platforms measure chart positions on the basis of the number of times each individual track is streamed. As a result, chart performance can be affected by repeat consumption (Datta et al, 2018).…”

Paradox of celestial jukebox: Resurgence of market control

“…In conventional recording business settings, radio airplay followed a Top 40 pre-selection filtering structure. As the increasing adoption of streaming services (Nielson 2018, Ofcom 2018) is rapidly bringing about changes in music listening behaviours (Datta, Knox, and Bronnenberg 2017), the way which the dynamics between radio and streaming services will change remains to be seen. 4 (2) Independent music blogs One particular change is an emergence of new media in the publicity sphere that reflects the voices of music enthusiasts and consumers.…”