With music stars starting to align themselves with streaming platforms (Jay Z, Kanye, Beyonce with Tidal, Drake, Taylor Swift with Apple Music) and gradually dividing the consumer, those who have been paying attention to the ongoing streaming wars have wondered, “what is next?”. We’ve seen the successor for the Vinyl, the 8tracks, the cassette tapes, the CD’s, but the successor for streaming? We’ve yet to see it and we may never see it.
Paul Resnikoff of Digital Music News has reported that Apple is planning to phase out the iTunes music store. According to his sources close to Apple, there is currently a two to four year plan intact to kill iTunes music store. Reportedly, the main focus of this discussion is no longer “not on if, but when” can they effectively pull this off. The outcome for this plan Apple has will end all song/album iTunes sales within the next two years, unless Apple chooses to kill the sale at a slower pace, ending it entirely in four years.
Recode reached out to Apple for clarity on this rumor and Apple rep Tom Neumayr, responded simply saying, “not true”, but wouldn’t elaborate any further. DMN also reports that by 2019, revenue made from iTunes music store will be down to $600 million from its 2012 3.9 billion peak.
It’s an interesting conversation that’s going on in regards to streaming. This will only add more fuel to the fire. If Apple is in fact looking to kill the iTunes store, the question will be how will music labels readjust the contract for an artist.
Joe Budden tried to warn us!
