There are actually more decentralized music streaming apps like catalog and The Songs that owns itself but let's talk about Audius which has managed to stand out amongst the crowd.
Growing up as kids, I believe everyone has at least once in a lifetime wish to do music, like that 20 second music dreams that suddenly sparks up, and when we, I mean when I personally look at it, the stress involved, the cost of production, the cost of promotion and coupled with the fact that coming from the dirt as upcoming artists, it takes a hella time to get to the top, and it's all just too much work to not even get paid a penny in the process. To get paid on YouTube is actually very difficult, and then on streaming medias like Spotify, Audiomack and all that, artists don't just get paid enough, and it's community structure doesn't always fit in for independent artists tryna get their voice heard through music.
Music is supposed to be free, but the system is far from granting young talent the podium to fully be themselves, and you guess, crypto and blockchain technology can solve this as well…
Audius is a blockchain-powered, decentralized music streaming service with social media features. It's owned and run by an open-source community of artists, fans, and developers, and has its own crypto token, AUDIO.
There's a lot of changes that could take place in major business sectors if only they adopt this system of being community projected, and blockchain powered to enhance transparency. A report states that the music streaming services have over 400 million subscribers worldwide and have made roughly over $13 billion in revenue last year. However, compared to the crazy amount of money made which is hugely impacted by the producers, artists and songwriters, these people are not being compensated enough for their creativity.
As a result, Audius was birthed in 2018, it is blockchain powered, decentralized music streaming platform that allows artists upload their tunes and directly connect with fans. It is reported to have originally launched on the POA Network, an Ethereum Sidechain, then later moved part of its services to the Solana blockchain. Audius differs from other music streaming networks because it's powered by blockchain and instead of the old fashioned Fiat payment system, Audius carries out its payments with a community token called Audio. It's a pretty healthy token last time I checked coingecko, so it's only ideal that it's pretty appreciative that any artist would fully accept it as payment.
Just like any other crypto projects, there's always more to a token that just being money moved across networks, crypto creates a run for money to make more money, and also places it in a position to be a workforce. What do I mean? AUDIO is an ERC network token, is used for network security , node operators stake tokens to run a node and, in return, earn rewards from the network. As an exclusive feature, artists get premium features by staking the token, such features include displaying NFT crypto collectibles on the site. AUDIO is also used for Governance, staked tokens are required to vote on any proposals concerning the overall network.
"The platform is also reported to automatically rewards certain achievements with AUDIO tokens: top 5 weekly trending tracks, top 5 trending tracks, top 5 trending playlists, top 10 API apps, or uploads by those with verified Twitter or Instagram accounts are detailed here
Occasionally, the protocol also airdrops generous amounts of AUDIO tokens based on a formula that takes into account not only the number of listens but also the level of social engagement the artist has displayed. In October 2020, the service distributed a total of 50 million AUDIO tokens between 10,000 artists and users on the platform"
OK, 50 million tokens is millions of dollars considering the current price of $2.96 for each token, distributed amongst everyone that's ideally a contributor to the network, this is an example of fair distribution of wealth. With projects of this nature running in the music industry, there's a fair chance for low lives, or call it a fair podium for everyone to earn while doing what they do best. The current music industry is quite funny crafted, there's actually nothing that is at it is, but perhaps, with blockchain technology, this all will change for the better.
I don't know about you, but I could only imagine a better world, at least in terms of a better living status
