Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems? How Tastemakers and Consumers Shape Value in the Streaming Music Economy

Abstract

Streaming has completely transformed the music economy. With the average payout per stream yielding to a mere fraction of a cent, record labels and listeners have been redefining how music is priced and valued. This thesis explores these emerging tensions through a relational lens. It shows how key players in the music market newly construct music’s worth and manage its profits. Using in-depth interview data from six music tastemakers and eleven music consumers (N=17, aged 18-45), I find that the emerging streaming economy is shaped by shared meanings of music’s value and social relations among its participants. Tastemakers use behavioral data to strategically manage relationships between artists and consumers, each other, and social media influencers. Through these connections, they effectively cultivate high-profile media attention, brand recognition, and fan loyalty, which in turn, elevates artists’ social status, drives up their streaming revenue, and sustains their long-term economic viability within the music industry. Conversely, consumers draw upon relationships with artists, each other, and streaming platforms to construct communities, friendships, and social identities, which in turn, makes them more likely to spend more on in-person music events and personalized merchandise. Ultimately, I conclude that the effects of digitization in cultural economies, such as the music industry, have much to do with the social and cultural contours of the market than solely with technological innovations or money itself.