I Want My MP3

Inside the messy — but promising — future of streaming music

Any song, anywhere, anytime--all for less than $10 a month. that's how the world should consume music, according to the folks behind services like Spotify, Rdio and Pandora, which collectively reach almost 100 million active users (up from just 45 million two years ago). Despite that breakneck growth, however, none of them are making any money. Spotify, for example, lost $78 million last year. The revenue from its paid users, who shell out as much as $120 a year to stream songs on their mobile devices, could not offset the licensing costs--fractions of cents per play, for artists--generated by users of...

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