Audius & The Internet Of Giving A Fuck

A music industry hard fork for those that desire more

Note: A version of this appeared in a recent newsletter from Music Business Worldwide. This is not that version, lots has changed since, life comes at you fast, etc. Ironically, I hadn’t explored some of the new features Substack launched prior to writing this. I wish I had- as far as I can tell, this platform might be the best example of the these ideas in the wild, the product pushing thought rather than sound. It’s getting a lot of things right as far as I can tell.

Another note: Kyle Chayka is a better writer than me (obviously) and summarized some of these feelings in his latest New Yorker piece that came out after mine (that probably no one read) but before this post. You should read that (and everything he writes), too.

Hi, I’m Head of Artist Revenue at Audius and I spend most of my time trying to solve problems I helped create as a teenager. When I downloaded Aphex Twin’s Come To Daddy EP and Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter The 36 Chambers as a Napster Beta user around 1999 it presented me an unlikely path from Boise, ID to a future in music. Eventually I ended up co-founding a label that did reasonably well, helped facilitate a few generational bangers as well as the Arby’s theme song, and managed some artists that are now able to support their families. Along the way, I’ve watched music conform to new, technologically optimized distribution methods by consolidating into a sterile and homogeneous facsimile of a once vibrant market. And now, I think we are occupying one of the least Cool & Good® moments of institutional music to date.

But all is not lost, it feels like there’s something really exciting coming down the series of tubes. The pervasive trend that I think will define the next five years of the music industry is the bifurcation of the online consumer segment into two internets. One will be cheap (if not free), horizontally vast, and generally really shitty, not dissimilar to the one we’re forced to endure now. The other version of the internet will grow in value as users spend more time, energy, and money on it. The experience will be rich, challenging, high-intent, personally fulfilling and profoundly deep. The music will be expensive and high-quality, like a really nice piece of luggage. I think that the latter version, the The Internet Of Giving A Fuck, is branching off in front of us in real time. Finally.

So first, let’s assume what we’re told about the current state of the music industry is true and durable, that it has firmly returned to profitable glory after two decades of stagnation in the wake of file sharing. We read about how profits will continue to grow, but, about as often, we’re also told that there’s allegedly 100,000 songs uploaded to traditional DSPs daily. Similarly, there’s like 63 tours this summer that you simply can’t miss? That’s one concert every 1.4 days! It all feels super disingenuous, the inevitable dilution of all things Cool & Good®. And it’s beginning to feel like a lot of people are, in fact, electing to miss those concerts. And it sounds like much of the audio shoved through DDEX every week are rain sounds or yoga studio covers of songs that weren’t that good to begin with (though I have my own theory on the latter I should expound on). And that is all assuming whatever is “consuming” it on the other side of the world is even human and has ears with which to listen. 

After all, the current streaming model we’ve been pacified with relies on the inability to confirm proof of life; no communication or organizing is facilitated on most DSPs for a reason. That would make it human. That would make music valuable and, hence, more expensive, throwing the anti-competitive, chokepoint flywheel spinning off its axis. It’s no wonder the money in music tech is flowing to organizations that only really win if they all but remove humans from the creative process entirely. AI is the endpoint of this profit seeking progression, robots blindly winning the race to the very dark bottom. It’s likely that the human experience around creating, supporting, and enjoying music is the last margin that can be squeezed by these systems.

Which sucks because humans do so much more with music than just listen. Online identity is defined by what one creates as much as what one curates, supports, and aligns with. This is especially true in terms of music. Tiktok knows this- it’s why collaboration is at the core of their discovery mechanisms. The magic in music (as in many things) is with other people, other experiences. There is deep value there, in the relationship between and among a musician and their many interconnected proponents, those that see themselves in the art and steward it into the zeitgeist while signaling that to other consumers. This is the value that Spotify has anonymized, intermediated, and captured. Megafans wield their influence elsewhere, be it the ham-fisted repurposing of vinyl purchases to juice the chart position of their favored icon or by bullying their perceived competitors in weird comments sections.

If onlyyyyyy those concentrated fan communities had access to a participatory music industry actually designed to educate and develop skills, taste, and plurality while it remunerates users in an upward spiral of engagement, omni-directional transaction, and ultimate ownership by value creators. The music would be so much more meaningful, and I believe a lot of people would pay way more to be a part of it. Tellingly, the most galvanizing song of the year is called “Not Like Us”, not “Not Like Me”. It’s also a huge commercial success.

Another bonus; a novel, unified appreciation for shared ideas in music by those with skin in the game could catalyze broader societal knock-on effects, too. Movements reminiscent of an age where music was the progressive tip of the spear could creatively co-exist and flourish. Ideas could convincingly battle like rappers for musical and cultural mindshare. When we paid for music it brought us together to solve the world’s biggest problems. The state of art has always been a mirror held up to society. Right now it seems general apathy might actually be downstream of creative apathy. Investing in music might help us collectively give a fuck about everything else.

The trend toward a participatory and multiplayer experience is evident, and there are a lot of indicators that people will pay for it. Billie Eilish is selling the isolated vocals to her new album so fans can sample and reproduce underneath them. Audiomack has allowed users to speed up or slow down audio, letting consumers that give a fuck be a part of their new favorite song. There’s even a silver lining on the live side. A manager I spoke with noted that artists who once played arenas are now selling comparable amounts of tickets across multiple nights in smaller venues. The fans just want to be literally closer to the music, they want to participate in something visceral.

The Internet of Giving a Fuck is inevitable (and frankly, has been anticipated under other speculative names for years). At Audius, we are building a multiplayer DSP that’s enjoyed, owned, and operated by the individuals that create value within it, in an effort to try to achieve a lot of the things I mentioned . Importantly, this has to start with decentralization. When we’re done (if ever), there should be no distinction between listener, creator, or executive on Audius, and everyone will be incentivized to invest time, attention, and money into music and each other in numerous ways. It could be as simple as entering a free remix contest (as thousands have to date), sharing a song with a friend, or connecting a credit card and buying a beat from a producer who named their price. These marketplace dynamics are designed to eventually add transparency and efficiency to playlisting, creative feedback, recording tips, props, and dialogue. I want to facilitate and watch scenes emerge from the on-chain equivalents of LA’s Fairfax Avenue or Chicago’s U Media and with them, entire crops of professional artists, labels, managers, marketers, videographers, etc.

The next CBGB could be a group chat on Audius. The task at hand is getting artists and consumers to give a fuck (in the form of their hard earned music and money), too.