Who Still Buys and Owns Music?

(11/3/2014) Apple's iTune and Amazon's online music see biggest fall in sales of digital music download, while digital streaming services is going up . Well, most readers probably are not surprised? Who are still buying and own music in the digital streaming era? Limited to my flash memory size, I may not have all musics in one device. So, why do I have to remember to load my digital music download into devices to the places that I want to listen to (in the car, on the public transportation, work out, biking...)? For the convenience, consumer prefer to listen to music anywhere they want, so monthly subscription (or free membership) is foreseeably becoming the main stream in the future.

But I am surprised to see the differences of digital sales download in different countries (Japan vs. Sweden) and among different genres (country music fans still buy more music than the fan of other genres).

Not only in digital music, Amazon (and Apple) may have another problem: people don't buy books (especially the textbooks) anymore. They now just want to rent. Just today, country singer Taylor Swift announced that her new album will not be available on Spotify for streaming. Spotify posted a blog talking about this breakup.

Spotify begged in this blog "PS – Taylor, we were both young when we first saw you, but now there’s more than 40 million of us who want you to stay, stay, stay. It’s a love story, baby, just say, Yes." Spotify made two playlists as below.