Looking at music on Steemit, what you see now is a mirage.
It’s a nice mirage. At the moment, we’ve got tons of artists from newbies to professionals sharing their work, interacting and collaborating, earning decent money in the process.
Some artists, especially new ones with support from Curie, earn $100+ on their best posts. Phone videos of acoustic performances can generate these kinds of rewards a few times a week, creating an incredible new income stream!
Behind the Mirage
The music ecosystem on Steemit will look nothing like this in the future.
It’s important to think about all blockchain projects in a 24 month window and beyond. This technology is evolving rapidly.
It’s not algebra, it’s calculus. The ecosystem is in constant flux.
With that said, let’s compare how musicians and listeners interact on Steemit today with what will occur in 24 months.
Now vs. The Future
The music community on Steemit is strong right now despite a lack of good tools.
Open Mic Project
The Open Mic project, run by @luczypher, is a great example of this. There are dozens of live recordings created and contributed to the project every week, voted on by the community, with prizes for the top three.
Steemit's layout is woefully inadequate for the Open Mic project. There is no good way to poll people for the winners - using upvotes on comments is a crude method. There’s no good way to listen to submissions, although Luzcyper makes an effort by compiling all entries into each week’s thread.
Imagine a Steem project 24 months from now. What if you went to “steemitopenmic.com", submitted your video through a form there, and then could click on the “Listen” page to hear and vote for entries from other users?
What if it was easy to sort through entries based on tags: Original, Cover, Acoustic, Full Band, Instrumental, and so on. What if you could get notifications for your favorite artists, specifically for the open mic submission posts?
You see what I’m saying? The current layout is awkward, whereas a few well designed apps could change everything.
Music Distribution
Music distribution is an even more extreme scenario. Right now if you want to release music “On Steem”, all you can do is make a post about your new song.
You can’t even upload it directly to the blockchain. You have to upload your track onto YouTube or Soundcloud and embed it… blech! Talk about centralized - this is a huge problem, when you rely on an unstable third-party service to enable your decentralized blockchain platform.
The future is remarkably easy to imagine: Spotify on Steem. Just a simple streaming service that works fast and well and pays via Steem royalties.
It could be as simple as this: There’s a default royalty, perhaps the Steem equivalent of one American cent per listen. You load Steem into the app and it stores it in a “wallet” which automatically depletes over time.
Artists would receive all of this money, or at least the lion’s share.
If I could navigate the library of Bandcamp or Soundcloud, but pay my way via Steem / SBD payments and even upvotes (as @kevinwong and @steevc have both talked about in their blogs)… that would be a game changer.
It will funnel money back into the hands of musicians, away from bloated music industry companies. It will create a larger number of financially independent musicians - people who can learn a living creating art and entertaining other people, WITHOUT signing away all their freedoms or rights.
Longer term, this reduces advertiser influence in art by reducing the amount of ad money that artists need to take. They’ll be more independent, more free - so on a huge picture scale, this makes the world a healthier and happier place.
The Future is Not Now
None of this amazing stuff is happening yet. We’re only at the very beginning of our Steem journey.
Everything we do as musicians on the blockchain now is being hacked together via a clunky online interface. We’re trying to build businesses on the blockchain through a web forum. It’s going to be awkward.
In the future, when the best aspects of Soundcloud, Spotify, and Bandcamp are combined on a Steem-powered service… there will be Steem-based management companies, Steem-powered distribution networks… Rad shit is going to happen.
Right now, it's like a small community sharing songs with each other. It's fun and I like it a lot. In the future, though, imagine it like an agency of the world's greatest artists, performing in sold-out arenas and at huge festivals. That's what Steemit looks like in 3-5 years.
Stay Tuned
For now, the only option we have is to contribute and try to do our part to move towards this bright future.
Even if you have no technical inclinations, just making the best music you can and blogging about it here on Steemit is a great way to help.
What do you think? Do you see a revolution around the corner for musicians on Steemit?
I really like seeing this coming into development on the steem blockchain! We are in the very early stages of content creation in the crypto-verse and there is plenty of appetite for something that is out of the centralized control of big media.
I'm a content creator on the video and graphic side of things and I'm very much rooting for the development of the music side while at the same time rooting for decentralized video sharing platform that will rival Youtube. Content creators everywhere are looking for alternatives to the big companies that control the game rules.
KEEP GOING!
Dude you should definitely check out LBRY! Based on the personality and content of this post, it seems exactly up your alley. They have a great decentralized video hosting service built on blockchain tech and just entered open beta.
I do see a revolution (maybe more like an evolution) for music in general. Technology will be able to start fighting the establishment. However, history showed that the establishment in the music industry is big and very strong, and many artists who make a living from their music are reluctant to move away from the establishment, since those channels have power and can help artists to keep being relevant for their audience. I have several good friends in the music industry and have already for years discussions with them to move away from the establishment and take matters in own hands, or at least more in own hands. But without success, even when more and more services emerges that allows to bring their music in different ways to the public. I suppose, those who earn a living from what they do, will be the least prone to jump into a revolution, since that may cost them their bread and butter.
Completely agree with you. I think that artists who are already earning decent money are the LAST ones to come on board this new revolution.
It's those who have not found success or a good income yet - they are open to new ideas, seeking a better future - and steem is a great home for them.
Steem and other blockchains are more likely to co-exist alongside the label system than to destroy it
I do agree, more like co-existence than overthrowing. At least for quite some time to come. More and more services are emerging, also in the automated booking of artist. These are also more for the small artists, but at least it is a beginning of a better way of promoting gigs and artists while not having to spend a lot of money on artists bookers. That said, bookers are not earning that much money when calculating this back to hours spend, but the work that needs to be put into booking artists is a lot. A difficult industry that is very fragmented from event and booking point of view with low level of automation.
Booking shows is a nightmare! When the blockchain can improve that side of things it's gonna be heaven
I'm not sure if blockchain is required for bookings, already quite a few webservices emerged offering a marketplace to bring artists and promoters together. However, booking an artist for a promoter is generally a manual activity not because it cannot be automatted but because the promoter may have some artists in mind, but can be influenced to book some other artists when sold to him/her. That is the profession of a booking agent. To know what the promoter likes, to offer the artists(s) at the right time, to know what artists can perform together in the same room / party at the same night. The promotion of artists is like selling expensive products to B2B players, this cannot be done automatically, at least not for those who make a living out of performing. The fees are such high that it is one of the biggest expenses for a promoter, ie it requires emails, phone calls and such like to get to a deal. Once a deal is made, the rest can be done automatically, ie generate a contract etc. The logistics like travel etc, could potentially be done automatically, but also here the schedules of an artists are generally not set in stone and dynamic, and feedback from the artists or manager is generally required to make the right arrangements. Blockchain could help in sharing the contract, schedules etc, but can not become the prime automation service/DB to cover the whole process of booking and management.
That would be amazing! Who do we need to get to write that program?
I know nothing of programming, haha.
I was thinking about this same thing the other day what wth Youtube censoring the heck out of everything and Fb shaping and throttling your posts. As a new creator on FB if you're not paying for advertising then you don't get seen. Are there alternate video uploading sites besides youtube and vimeo? We need one that's linked to Steem.
Go forth and write such a thingy, thou architects of the interwebs!
LBRY is a great service for uploading videos - it has bittorrent style decentralized hosting built in, and operates on its own token where content creators can charge whatever fee they want (such as $0.01 per view for a short video).
Vid.me is a more centralized model, not blockchain based, that is a pretty decent YouTube alternative too.
And lastly (not that you wanted all this info haha) - Steemsongs is supposedly happening, a Steem-based streaming service. I never believe in these things until they have a working product though :-)
LBRY will not succeed as long as they are planning on charging anything to watch videos. Coming from Youtube, I can tell you that 99% of your audience will not pay. It's only that 1% that will and that won't be enough. LBRY needs to adopt a system like STeemit or LivePeer that has its own internal created tokens that keep the content free to view and pays the creators that put out worthwhile material.
As far as Vid.me, they have started censoring channels now too. We need something decentralized on a blockchain. Livepeer looks interesting. I had high hopes for SteemQ but that looks all but abandoned. :(
Whoever makes the first decentralized video sharing platform is going to score big...there is a HUGE creator base at Youtube ready to jump ship....but to where?
You can do free content on LBRY to be fair - I understand where your coming from, but it is good to consider LBRY as a platform just like Steem is a platform. You could build a 100% free platform on top of LBRY for instance.
I'd love to see vid me or something like it ON lbry. That's my dream.
Yeah but the good creators are not going to make content if they can't earn any money. That's just the reality. LBRY will figure this out pretty quick. Content must be free for the consumers. It's just the way it is.
You should take a look at Musiconomi. They pretty much do that but on their own blockchain. Tying it to or developing it with STEEM would be great for both industries though.
Have you been following the Steemsongs project from @thisisbenbrick?
Yea! I am eagerly awaiting that project to get underway. If Steem Songs turns into a working, usable streaming/sales service for Steem-based music distribution, I'll be first in line to use it.
Ben seems like a smart guy, so hopefully he can make it happen...
I'm very excited for the future of Steemit and its music community! Thanks for posting this..very good points. I think a revolution is coming..think of all the disenfranchised people that will migrate from YouTube.
You are welcome - we'll see what happens with YouTube. There's been a lot of doomsaying but so far very few people seem to be actually leaving the platform...
Outstanding analisys about music on steemit!... :D
thanks
Viewly
I've heard about Viewly a bit, isn't it for video hosting? Is it on its own token, or built on another chain?
:) And this is why I put the first ever Chamber of Commerce on the blockchain.
It needs some love and better plans, but it exists.
@chambercommerce
SteemON!
Ya this is the kind of stuff we need! One step, one person, one project at a time... to the moon.
Damn right.
will it compete LBRY then? or can they coexist?
There will be some element of competition probably. To be honest it's still very hard to evaluate LBRY, I think in another 3-6 months it will be more clear if they can attract users