That's not true. iTunes or Spotify did not nearly compensate for lost CD revenue.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/...
You are making the same mistake that software companies mad(k)e when talking about revenue and losses due to piracy: not every copy made is a lost sale and depending on the price points and other business model parameters you can find sustainability or lack thereof in many different places of the parameter space.
There is a pretty good chance that if the record companies had not sat on their hands lamenting all this online piracy and if they had provided a good alternative timely that those streaming revenues would be a lot higher today.
I simply stopped buying music around that time, and I don't have a feeling I missed out on anything. The very few things I love that you could call modern are by unsigned artists who are more than happy to put their art out there because they love making good stuff, not necessarily because they are going for a huge commercial success.
Record companies are very much like start-up accelerators: they are entirely optional.
sidenote: I think posting the same link over and over again in a single thread is not a very nice thing to do, even if you believe it shows you are right (which it doesn't...).
No, because they had to compete against music piracy, which is hard, as pirated music is free.
There absolutely is. If someone produces a thing through their own hard work, they own the rights to that thing, and you do not have the right to consume that thing without paying them for it. You do not own the rights to other peoples' work.
If you disagree, then prove it by going to your boss/company and telling them that they don't have to pay you unless they want to (and that you're not going to engage in any enforcement or legal action against them, because you don't think that it's wrong).
> Record companies are very much like start-up accelerators
Record companies are completely irrelevant to the issue of piracy.
Oh poor, poor Sony/BMG/EMI CEOs who absolutely couldn't buy another yacht while lowering their expenses by literally making money out of thin air by literally copying digital music. /me wets a handkerchief with the tears of compassion.
You are spamming that graph, but only because you think it supports your opinion.
Except it does not. Go to RIAA, select Adjusted for inflation and select all years.
You would see what by 2017 the revenue is on par with 1981.
What happened in 1990-1998 what skyrocketed the revenue levels to be twice of that period?
The compact discs.
What happened in 2001-2008 what returned the revenue to almost 1981 levels?
Nobody wanted the fucking compact discs anymore.
They are bulky, you need a good player with at least 40sec anti-shock, you can't run with it, you need a fanny pack or something to even have it with you if you don't want to clip it on your jeans belt (if you don't even have a belt, eg track suit or skirt/dress) and god forbid you wanted more then one album (ie CD) with you, now you need to bring the CD bag with you.
And why people didn't want CDs no more?
Flash and for some time - 1"/1.8" HDD players.
People tasted how it can be to have multiple albums (and with HDD players - your whole library) on a small, compact device which is immune or way more resistant to the shock, doesn't chew the batteries and hey! shows the artist and song title!
'Piracy killed music industry [revenue]' is the bullshit, it's just what by 2008 you could no longer sell a $0.10 piece of polycarbonate for $19.99, people didn't wanted them anymore. Of course your 200% profit margin doesn't exists anymore and it shouldn't had existed in the first place.
You are conveniently ignoring the musicians which are hardest hit by our piracy. They make hardly any money from Spotify.
> You would see what by 2017 the revenue is on par with 1981.
Apart from 1981 pretty much coinciding with the cassette piracy decline, you are also ignoring the fact that the world economy has grown massively since 1981. Saying there was no decline in revenue is like comparing car revenue from 1981 with car revenue today and claim the natural state of things for them is to be the same. The comparison is absurd.
> What happened in 2001-2008 what returned the revenue to almost 1981 levels?
Piracy. CDs initially prevented piracy. Then CD sales collapsed because of piracy. Napster & Co.
> People tasted how it can be to have multiple albums (and with HDD players - your whole library) on a small, compact device
That was possible with the iPod and other MP3 players together with legally acquired downloadable music. But the revenue never returned to CD levels because most people kept pirating. Then Spotify came with extremely low pricing and forced musicians to accept ruinous streaming revenues, because Spotify had to compete against piracy. That's why music revenue has collapsed.
They make hardly any money from the record companies.
(Personally I don't pay anything for spotify, I buy almost all my new music from bandcamp)