Substack Article: I Watched the Music Industry Fight Streaming. AI Feels the Same
I was in the room during the streaming wars. The conversation around AI feels hauntingly familiar.
I once got into an argument with the manager of The Tragically Hip at the NXNE Transmedia Summit (maybe 2010ish?!) about music streaming.
Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Not a casual disagreement. A real emotional argument (at least for him) I thought it was a healthy debate.
At the time, the music industry was in full panic mode. Napster had already detonated the old model. Spotify and Pandora were emerging. The major labels — especially the ones built around aggressive 360-style deals and deep control over artists’ revenue streams — were terrified. But not everyone was reacting the same way. Many artists were curious, conflicted, or cautiously optimistic. Many managers were actively trying to understand what streaming could become and how artists might survive inside it or better use it to their advantage. I watched artist contracts starting to define the difference between a CD sale and a digital file sale almost overnight. The entire “big time” industry felt like it was watching the ground dissolve beneath it, while indie music had new hope - maybe we could make a living doing this without the labels? While articles like “1,000 fans” entered the scene…
