The Spotify Effect

I subscribe to MOG, a streaming music service with a catalog of more than 12 million tracks. And using a device called Roku, I can access MOG—not to mention Netflix and hundreds of other "channels"—through my TV. I can as well get MOG—or its local competitor, Rhapsody—on my smartphone and computer, too. That is: I can listen to virtually whatever I want, whenever I want.

But hanging on to old records and CDs isn't about retaining access to the music. These albums are bookmarks in my life. Without them, I wouldn't be reminded of the people I was with—the friends who filled my life—while the time of purchase. This is, I believe, one of the reasons MOG CEO David Hyman recently told me "I'm convinced that in the then and there five years CDs will be gone. In the long run, when there's ubiquitous broadband, local files will be gone, and there'll be cloud-based music [MOG, Spotify, etc.] and there will be vinyl."

Barsuk, one of the city's other major independent labels, recently made their catalog available to streaming services, including Spotify, afterwards being away for several years. Josh Rosenfeld, one of Barsuk's owners, said that afterwards much change in the subscription sector and the recorded-music business at large, they decided to experiment one more time. "The jury's out from my perspective on whether those [services] should be a part of what we do or not," says Rosenfeld. "We are collecting data. We will examine those data and make a decision about whether to keep our catalog available in those places."