In the past few decades, the music industry has flourished, but has been at times limited in access. You could get music through CDs, tapes, and radio, but it was expensive to acquire a large library of your own curated music. With the advent of the internet, piracy was widespread, and music could be illegally downloaded and shared with the touch of a button. This hurt artists and bands who couldn’t get money for their music.
Now, however, the free market of streaming services has put this piracy to a near stop. With services like Spotify, Apple Music, etc., free markets have created the ability to easily stream music at a low price point and rendered music piracy unnecessary. As users can choose between different platforms, these services have had to compete in for these users. As more users join these platforms, less piracy occurs, and artists get paid and get mass exposure to consumers who are able to access a wide variety of music for cheap or even free.
