We7 CEO Steve Purdham, at paidContent:UK’s recent mixer, already expressed concern that the ad-funded component of online music services like his can really work.
Now David Courtier-Dutton of fan-funding music gateway Slicethepie tells The Music Void: “I can’t make it work commercially in my mind. As a consumer, it’s absolutely bloody brilliant.”
He likened free streaming to running a supermarket in which all the products are free, supposedly funded by ads on the walls: “Yes, I’m burning a couple of million euros a month but look at all the customers – that’s not a business.”
Spotify execs are now at great pains to stress their model is about free and paid in harmony, expecting (perhaps with a finger in the air) equal revenue from each, and We7’s Purdham is also keen to march more users to subscription.
Says Courtier-Dutton, in the June interview published this week: “They will have to port the consumer from an experience that’s way too perfect and beautiful in to one that becomes a lot more awkward, and give them a pricepoint where they’d actually get their credit card out.”