There has been, as there is with any tech product, lots of scrutiny circling music streaming — which for this post we’ll mostly limit to Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. These three major tech companies are quickly becoming the most influential players in what can only be described as a very, very volatile industry.

Though the record labels have seen a melting of revenue only outpaced by our polar ice caps, one small beacon of hope remains: streaming services. As stated in Donald Passmans All You Need to Know About the Music Business, “streaming will become the biggest part of the business.” At the most recent versions release streaming was about 16% of the recorded music income and, “the fastest growing area of the business.” Thus it is no wonder the most influential companies in the music industry are actually technology companies — and it is no wonder people are going crazy over the trend of streaming exclusives.

The streaming services, of course, each offer something unique to this discussion. Spotify, as of August 2016, is the largest service with 39 million paid subscribers and roughly 70 million free users who receive a limited and ad supported product, though they shy away from offering album exclusives. It was revealed at Apple’s latest tech sermon that there are 17 million subscribers, up from 15 million subscribers just 2 month ago. Apple Music has supported over 65 exclusive albums to their service, including Chance the Rapper’s “Coloring Book” and Frank Ocean’s “Blonde.” Lastly, although Tidal hasn’t been very relevant since people started wiping their d**ks out for Harambe, they still provided the two largest exclusive album releases of this year: Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo” (which saw a massive amount of pirating) and Beyonce’s “Lemonade.”

From Apple’s September 7th Event — a collection of albums exclusively premiered on Apple Music

Now, the backlash to streaming exclusives have come from many voices. Troy Carter, now at Spotify, has stated that they are bad for consumers and the whole industry. Lyor Cohen does not support exclusives. It was reported that after “Blonde” was released UMG’s CEO stated they will no longer support exclusive streams. Another solid piece of criticism has come from DigitalMusicNews, which argues that exclusives penalize fans, encourage piracy, and send the wrong message to emerging artists.

Now, it’s understandable as an incumbent record label to be pissed at a service like Apple Music or Spotify. Streams pay less to labels (as well as to artists, which is the rhetoric primarily used when labels state their case against streaming services). Streaming services are also making record labels obsolete — see: Chance the Rapper (never signed to a label) and Frank Ocean (dropped his label before releasing Blonde). In Frank Ocean’s case, Apple Music was also the perfect platform to release Endless and Blonde while relying on his personal branding to sell music (and not UMG). And unfortunately, record labels are criticizing exclusive streaming because it’s making them more and more obsolete. And why should everyone stop freaking out about it? Because 1. It’s inevitable 2. It really isn’t that bad for music listeners (it can be bad for labels, but as we read above it can be a good thing).

Yes, exclusive streaming is inevitable. Apple understands how lucrative the music industry is — iTunes has taught them that and Apple Music is just the next iteration. And a company like Apple has no issue dumping money into exclusives in order to spur subscriber growth. Additionally, programs like Beats1 and artist curated shows like .Wav Radio, OVOSound, and Othertone make Apple Music the platform for tastemakers. Music streaming is the best way to experience music, and Apple is simply providing the best product with exclusivity and content. Whether we like it or not, they will continue to pay for exclusive rights until they have achieved a substantial user base and/or artists choose not to exclusively release their music.

Quick note: the prospect of exclusive streaming from the artist’s point of view could easily stop this trend, yet so far they appear highly supportive. Exclusivity for 1–3 weeks on streaming services can come with a lump payoff, free promotion from the service, free press (they may criticize the artist, but there’s no such thing as bad publicity right?), and the opportunity to be independent or gain leverage over their label. The only downside is increased piracy, which hasn’t been a large enough negative.

The argument for why streaming exclusivity isn’t that bad for music listeners is easy to understand once you break down music listeners to two categories: tastemakers and casual listeners. Tastemakers are the ones who seek new music, while casual listeners let it come to them, and consumers can fall under either category depending on the artist/genre. The two major arguments are:

Exclusives punish paying listeners — both the tastemakers and casual fans. The most basic argument is: when a competitor is offering a feature that my service doesn’t have, I should be mad that my current service is inferior. It’s a competitive market and fans will go where they find the most value. Additionally, exclusivity can help aid the discovery of music to casual fans when music streaming services advertise a new exclusive album on their platform. Tastemakers would seek it regardless, but casual fans get to discover it. Exclusives encourage piracy. To be honest, this really isn’t a big deal. Music piracy has always been a huge issue and always will. However, those with access to the exclusive album won’t pirate it. The most likely demographic to pirate an album will be tastemakers without access, and an artist releasing an album with exclusivity should already be ok with an increase in piracy. However, we’ve already come across the best way to make a pirated album obsolete — continue to update the album! The Life of Pablo went through a number of iterations across streaming services, which makes a pirated album worthless instantly.

Exclusives bolster music discovery and what listeners may lose in short term convenience, they make up for in a competitive industry that will aggresively try to provide more value to paying subscribers. No consumer wants to buy into a monopoly, and album exclusives allow any company to provide a superior product instantly to a unique base of consumers.

Now, I must admit that exclusives can anger listeners and hardcore fans, which is why I believe they won’t be around for a long time. The current economics of streaming makes exclusives a good deal for Apple Music, however, that won’t last a long time. If consumers stop signing on as a result of an exclusive stream or if the price per exclusive goes up, the amount of exclusives will decrease.

However, exclusives are currently the best tool to convert non-paying users to subscribers of a streaming service, which is great for the industry as a whole. It’s good for fans to have a competitive industry and many platforms to access music — from Spotify to Tidal to Youtube Music and far beyond. It’s good for artists to have many options for distributing their music and releasing their album exclusively is yet another platform for revenue, promotion, and creativity. Lastly, as long as record labels continue to have a value proposition, they should at least secretly be happy about one growing source of revenue in an industry where revenue streams continue to dry up.

So what do I think will happen in the future?

Apple Music: will continue its growth, fueled by exclusive and curated content as well as an iOS10 redesign, to the point where they have close or more than the amount of subscribers as Spotify.

Spotify: may focus on a niche genre for exclusives, such as EDM, while exploring merchandise and live events as a source of growth

Tidal: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Youtube Music: will continue to gain acceptance by finally complying with the record labels and likely focus on VR instead of directly competing in an already uber-competitive industry