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Comment by bsder | Hacker News Reader

And yet whenever any of the 15-30 year olds I know want a specific piece of music, they go straight to YouTube. I have yet to see anybody push "Buy" on any of those services

"The average iTunes user spends ~$40 per year on the service"

That matches my experience, and that's average. Presumably the in-app purchase whales are skewing that high; it's probably closer to $20.

Between apps and video, that doesn't leave much for music. Almost all the money goes to Top 40 for that.

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You need to meet more 15-30 year olds. I'm part of that demographic, and many of my friends view Spotify as the first stop and Youtube as a backup if Spotify doesn't have the desired content

And some have all 320s, and a surprising number are buying mostly vinyl. But everyone uses YouTube to listen to tracks they don't own, aren't available to stream (many, for Spotify), or are vinyl-only. It's always the go-to for house parties.

There's a lot of variety out there, but you're right, YouTube is the backstop.

Yes, lots of people use YouTube. But bsder claimed that everyone in that demographic that they know goes "straight" to YouTube, and I was presenting the countering anecdote that I know loads of people in that demographic who use YouTube as the backstop, not the first stop.

On the house party subject, my roommates and I in college through roughly weekly parties, ranging from a few people to several hundred people, and we defaulted to Spotify (but used lots of other things as well). We could have definitely been an outlier, though, as I agree lots of people default to YouTube there.

My 14 yr old listens to music on youtube about 3 hours a day while doing homework (yes, he has 3 hours of homework, but that's another question).

Very occasionally he'll listen to the music I have on my home server.

Never any of the other free services.

So, I'd agree with the GP, but the demo is much younger than 15-30.

Are you arguing that YouTube holds a monopoly over music distribution? Because if not I'm not sure what the point of this anecdote is.

Wow, surprised to read that statistic. I spend that per month, and that's on a light month.

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