2017/09/11 by Hannes Datta, George Knox, Bart J. Bronnenberg
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing #Copyright and Intellectual Property #Digital Marketing and Social Media
paper · pdf · doi:10.1287/mksc.2017.1051
openalex publication_date 2017/09/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Instead of purchasing individual content, streaming adopters rent access to libraries from which they can consume content at no additional cost. In this paper, we study how the adoption of music streaming affects listening behavior. Using a unique panel data set of individual consumers’ listening histories across many digital music platforms, adoption of streaming leads to very large increases in the quantity and diversity of consumption in the first months after adoption. Although the effects attenuate over time, even after half a year, adopters play substantially more, and more diverse, music. Relative to music ownership, where experimentation is expensive, adoption of streaming increases new music discovery. While repeat listening to new music decreases, users’ best discoveries have higher play rates. We discuss the implications for consumers and producers of music. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1051 .