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The music industry has been going through a rough patch for a number of years. That wasn’t always the case. A number of decades ago, before the information age known as the 21^st century, the music industry was flourishing. The arrival of the internet changed the game.

The slow and painful death of physical music:

The evolution of physical music has been an interesting story so far. For decades on end, vinyl dominated the playing field drawing flocks of consumers towards dedicated record shops, exchanging their hard-earned money for the right to listen to the newest hits in the comfort of your home, whenever they chose to. Eventually, new mediums, such as the cassette and the CD, found their way to the marketplace and lead to the gradual decrease of production costs as well as the associated retail prices.

The arrival of the internet, combined with the digitalization of music through the development of CDs, drastically changed the internet: Websites like Napster, Soulseek and Piratebay enabled consumers to skip music stores altogether and share music among each other over the web, free of charge. This constituted a turning point as it taught younger generations that music can be consumed for free. This caused a dramatic decline in profits across the industry and considerably

The Rise of the Platform

But things were about to get even worse. The emergence of platforms like YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music weakened the industry’s position even further. Under the premise of democratization of the music industry, streaming platforms have cut out several middlemen (resulting in the death of numerous music shops, labels, and distributors) and now leverage cross-side network effects to capture a ridiculously disproportionate share of the profits. The consequences of this shift are heterogeneous: While big mainstream stars such as Taylor Swift and Kanye West still earn outrageous amounts, the share of profits for new entrants declines by the day, driving new and promising artists out of the industry and stifling creativity.

 

Sources:

https://medium.com/resonatecoop/this-mind-map-of-the-music-industry-showed-me-the-damage-that-streaming-is-doing-to-it-7f7f3b405adb

https://festivalpeak.com/spotify-is-ruling-the-music-industry-but-is-it-also-ruining-it-69a864428a78

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianmorris/2014/11/17/technology-is-destroying-the-music-industry-which-is-great-for-the-next-taylor-swift/#5a4cbab4236b

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Over the last 3 years, we’ve seen the stock of drones rise like rockets. Indeed, drones have transitioned from expensive toys comparable to radio-controlled helicopters to powerful tools capable of changing current and future business models. This post will elaborate on two novel applications of this exciting new technology.

Flying Cameras:

The technology’s impact on the photography industry has been nothing short of spectacular. In a sector that has long been dominated by professionals with large capitals, drones have played a role very similar to the one played by the introduction of the digital camera, which democratized photography by considerably cutting the entry price for cameras. This is where drones step in:

“Until just a few years ago, the pursuit of aerial photography was mostly limited to the military, dedicated hobbyists, and people with access to full-size aircraft.” – Time, 2018

Drone technology has slashed the entry barriers to aerial photography. While this is good news for video producers as it allows them to create high-quality aerial shots at a fraction of the price. This could prove to have a strong effect on the photography and film industry as hobby practitioners now possess the ability to rival bigger competitors. However, the implications for mainstream consumers are just as interesting: The availability of affordable drones empowers consumers and allows them to engage in an art form that until then had been reserved to professionals. As such hobby-photographers and YouTube content creators can considerably improve the quality of their art, thus providing society with increasingly qualitative and compelling content.

Healthcare:

In the field of healthcare, drones again have the potential to become a game-changing force. A drone’s ability to cover long distances without being interrupted by traffic leads many to believe that it represents the future of delivery and a few companies are already working on promising applications in the healthcare industry, where the fast delivery of emergency medical supplies can mean the difference between life and death.

Consequentially a number of companies have been trying to use this technology to save peoples’ lives: Zipline, a San-Francisco-based start-up has been using drones to deliver critical medical supplies to rural areas that were difficult to serve with traditional delivery methods.  TU Delft, on the other hand, studying the use of drones to deliver first aid equipment on the spot and that drones carrying defibrillators were able to arrive on location 16 minutes before emergency services, a number which in this context could very well save someone’s life!

 

 

Sources:

http://time.com/5281295/aerial-photography-history-drones/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrongtech/2018/09/03/why-you-should-be-investing-in-drone-technology-now-not-later/#cbab0423903e

http://www.flyzipline.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/13/defibrillator-carrying-drones-could-save-lives-research-suggests

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/03/10/592059175/medical-cargo-could-be-the-gateway-for-routine-drone-deliveries?t=1540219668639