Streaming music services have come a long way in recent years the main way of accessing and consuming music for the vast majority of users. This is very understandable, as the subscription model at a reasonable price and providing access to monstrously large catalogs offers many advantages. There are still many people who prefer to buy, either physically or digitally, and that’s very good too, but it’s undeniable that streaming dominates the music market right now.

There’s also something happening with streaming music services that we unfortunately don’t see with movies and series, and that’s that catalogs are largely shared. That means if you want to hear the latest from Taylor Swift, you can find it on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. You don’t need to subscribe to multiple services to access all the music you like (although each service tries to have its exclusivities), which means that it has to compete in other aspects without making the user’s head spin, as happens with video-on-demand catalogs.

So things are This market has been expanding for years, for the benefit of both the services themselves, and of course also the record companies and the owners of the rights to the music offered in them. Your income depends on the number of plays of your songs, so a higher volume of users will most likely translate into more plays and more accurately, more income. Now, as with almost everything, there are certain key elements that are final.

So as we read in 9to5Apple, Universal Music has seen a decrease in the rate of growth of users of streaming music services. Of course, they seem to think that this is a temporary slowdown, meaning that the growth rate will pick up again later (no date, of course). It is happening of course, and I feel it will be the case for you, that there are more and more voices that suggest that this is not temporary, but rather a sign that this market is approaching its highs.

This publication reflects some of the statements of the director of Universal Music, who saw its shares fall in value by at least 30%in response to this slowed growth rate. And personally, I can’t help but think that the desire to grow ad eternal It’s nonsense. I would understand the panic over a decline in subscribers to streaming music services, even stagnation could make for disturbing reading. But in trying to keep the growth numbers from the early years once the design is already heavily consolidated… is that my thing or is it bullshit?