DSPs will lead music’s mainstream Web3 adoption, but fan-powered music communities will share the wealth

Bruno Guez

In general, interoperability and optionality are going to become more and more important. Five years from now, people won’t care what blockchain they’re using to mint assets, or worry about the gas fees or transaction fees. They will simply have a wallet that manages their assets across networks.

The tensions between web2 and web3, however, go beyond consumer behavior, and they may determine the future of the music business. DSPs and distributors will want to use web3 capabilities to monetize music IP and unlock new revenue streams for creators.

At the same time, once incentives can be thoughtfully integrated into web3 tokenomics, wealth can be distributed to a greater population. Fan bases across the world will take a more active role in marketing in a way that looks very different from today’s behavior. The BTS army, as active marketers, will become mainstream.

The value of the music IP marketplace should be a trillion dollars. Most of the growth in recent years has been from the independent sector of that market, the smaller labels and self-managed artists who have every incentive to build authentic fan-powered communities of people who share their visions. This is a stronger pull, for many music lovers, than an easy-to-use interface.

In a way, we’ll see a “hard fork” in decentralized music activity: the big platforms touting hybrid models, and the more grassroots, artist-driven, culturally relevant activities that make the most of tokenized communities, DAOs, and other models yet to be dreamed up. These models will in turn distribute the wealth generated by music IP to more people.

The contributor economy will lead this evolution from the bottom up, and will become a new center of wealth for creators and their followers. This is a thrilling prospect for all of us who love the vitality and creativity of music communities.Music Business Worldwide