Grant Cochrane
How many times have we heard the idea that music consumers or fans should be persuaded to always buy music? That by campaigning, shutting down P2P sites and making an example of a few people illegal downloaders will become more sympathetic to our music industry plight and start buying music like they did in the glory days. There was a time when people would queue all night to buy the latest hot release in music. It is a sign of the time however that this no longer happens for music online or offline, but guess what? It happens for Apple. Think on that one.....
P2P is being taken over by streaming as the playback method of choice and until we can stream from our mobile devices the only downloads we will be using are the ones we want to carry with us. I for one (and I'm sure I'm not alone here) have way to much data on my computers. I want to declutter. We are increasingly mobile, the world is getting smaller so it makes sense that we want to travel light.
Now, don't get me wrong I don't think that music should be given away for free but I do think that we should be giving the fans what they want. If someone doesn't want to buy something they just wont buy it. Full stop. There is no amount of persuasion, cajoling, convincing, imploring or nagging that will make them do it. That's what some of us like to call terrible sales technique. Fans are smart and educated and have abundant choice. They will go to their preferred service for music and if that doesn't satisfy they will click off and on to somewhere else. It's a bit like having a high street with music retailers all selling the same thing and half of them giving their stuff away for free. You can't compete on price here and I guarantee that appealing to their better nature isn't going to work because they have no sympathy for the fact that the music business is losing revenue. Changing people is impossible, all they will do is resist you. If you want to see change, you must be the change. Create a new and different industry that contributes.
You cannot control music fans and consumers. They are people. Trying to change their behaviour is like trying to cup ants in your hands. The ants will just crawl all around you.
Find out more about my book "The Fan Experience" here
And more about me at www.leenasowambur.com
P2P is being taken over by streaming as the playback method of choice and until we can stream from our mobile devices the only downloads we will be using are the ones we want to carry with us. I for one (and I'm sure I'm not alone here) have way to much data on my computers. I want to declutter. We are increasingly mobile, the world is getting smaller so it makes sense that we want to travel light.
Now, don't get me wrong I don't think that music should be given away for free but I do think that we should be giving the fans what they want. If someone doesn't want to buy something they just wont buy it. Full stop. There is no amount of persuasion, cajoling, convincing, imploring or nagging that will make them do it. That's what some of us like to call terrible sales technique. Fans are smart and educated and have abundant choice. They will go to their preferred service for music and if that doesn't satisfy they will click off and on to somewhere else. It's a bit like having a high street with music retailers all selling the same thing and half of them giving their stuff away for free. You can't compete on price here and I guarantee that appealing to their better nature isn't going to work because they have no sympathy for the fact that the music business is losing revenue. Changing people is impossible, all they will do is resist you. If you want to see change, you must be the change. Create a new and different industry that contributes.
You cannot control music fans and consumers. They are people. Trying to change their behaviour is like trying to cup ants in your hands. The ants will just crawl all around you.
Find out more about my book "The Fan Experience" here
And more about me at www.leenasowambur.com
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