"Cheerleading for Spotify Doesn't Quite Get Us There"

"This echoes what we've been hearing from the Silicon Valley crowd about disintermediation and how the collapse of the old system would be great for the artist. We know how well that's worked out. And it ignores the process of re-intermediation, as the Internet companies consolidate into a few corporate behemoths even worse than the old major-label structure, and keep the artists locked out of all the dealmaking.
"There were certainly exploitative label deals and record company execs in the old model. But, the old-school, analog-age middlemen–not just people who work at labels, but record store clerks, editors at book publishers, journalistic critics–are rarely the people who get rich in the culture world."


Scott Timberg in Salon looks at music-streaming companies.