The Best Idea Ever

3278 · Post by **3278** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:48 pm

Google should just buy the record industry. It could. Sales are about half what they were ten years ago. As has been pointed out recently, a couple Google execs could buy the whole industry with their own personal money. Google's revenues in 2010 were $30 billion; Universal Music Group, which is about 1/3 of the global record industry, posted about $6 million.

Google's profitability is all based on advertising. That's where they make their money. In order to make that money, Google has to be the one supplying whatever's in front of your eyes: if Google makes a phone, they need to make sure that your web browser will serve Google ads, and then it doesn't matter if the phone is profitable. Even just having Google visible on the back of your phone is good for them: it means you'll be more likely to give in to ubiquity and use their search engine, and then it doesn't matter if the search engine and phone are profitable! Gmail doesn't have to make money: it's there to serve ads, and put the word "Google" in front of you.

So buy the record industry, Google. Imagine the ad money you could make with that ubiquity to leverage. It doesn't matter how much money you make from it, as long as people listen to it, and use you to get to it! Google Music, your cloud service, will only work as long as it's free - which is why you're so pissed at the people who want you to charge $30 a year for it - because free means everyone will use it. So buy the record industry, and run it like you run Gmail: not to be profitable, but to provide ubiquity. Not to please the largest number of people, but to do your best to please everyone, no matter what it costs...because then you can shove ads in front of their faces.

Buy the record industry. Run it unprofitably. Dump money into the equivalent of Wave: weird projects that might be the next big thing, or that you might never follow up on. Imagine if the record industry were willing to spend twice as much money on music, while still only making the same amount in profits: imagine all the crazy music that'd get made! And once you bring music and the licensing thereof into the 21st century, I think you get what's happening to books: the wholesale obliteration of one market for another.

I don't want Google to be my only gateway to music, but the great thing about Google is that they don't really want that, either. They don't care what music you listen to, as long as you see their ad when you listen to it, or see their ad when downloading it, or see their ad when browsing for it, whatever's the least annoying. So they can open-source the record industry like they've done to the phone industry: cut it loose, and let it be whatever can be made of it. Imagine if Google decided they'd release all music, from the entire record industry, under creative commons licensing? It wouldn't matter to them: as long as you use their music player, or their web browser, or their phone, it doesn't matter if the record industry is profitable.

Salvation122 · Post by **Salvation122** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:56 pm

I'm not sure that the music industry being run by people who don't give a fuck if it's profitable would be particularly good for professional musicians.

paladin2019 · Post by **paladin2019** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 10:51 pm

Salvation122 wrote:I'm not sure that the music industry being run by people who don't give a fuck if it's profitable would be particularly good for professional musicians.

That's one way it would be unprofitable. The musicians get paid regardless of whether they sell.

But 32's idea cuts to the another issue I don't think Sal was going towards, "What happens when you get paid regardless?" It's a capitalist argument that good music gets rewarded and shit disappears and to a marginal extent, that happens. I know it rarely works this way, but it's an (weak) argument against.

My bigger concern is what the music is used to advertise and what control the artist has over that. If you sell to Google, you'll probably lose that control and I think there will still be a (possibly much larger) independent segment of the industry. With the changes we're seeing in the book industry, independence seems to become more viable as time goes on.

3278 · Post by **3278** » Sun Apr 17, 2011 2:43 pm

Salvation122 wrote:I'm not sure that the music industry being run by people who don't give a fuck if it's profitable would be particularly good for professional musicians.

paladin2019 wrote:But 32's idea cuts to the another issue I don't think Sal was going towards, "What happens when you get paid regardless?" It's a capitalist argument that good music gets rewarded and shit disappears and to a marginal extent, that happens. I know it rarely works this way, but it's an (weak) argument against.

I think you'd definitely have to revisit how artists get paid, but that's actually a good thing, too: the current system is pretty ridiculous, and could use a revolution.

Overall, I think it could be good for musicians: it's not so much that you'd get paid no matter what you did, but that the pressure to profit would be lessened, because the "studio" would be more likely to take risks. The idea wouldn't be throwing good money after bad, but rather providing more studio services for less in artist sales.

paladin2019 wrote:My bigger concern is what the music is used to advertise and what control the artist has over that. If you sell to Google, you'll probably lose that control and I think there will still be a (possibly much larger) independent segment of the industry. With the changes we're seeing in the book industry, independence seems to become more viable as time goes on.

Well, it being Google, you'd think it'd kind of work on their model, which seems to be, "Do whatever you feel like, and we'll just provide an infrastructure for you to leverage." But they currently don't really own an industry that pays anyone for much of anything: Picasa is a tool for sharing images, not for selling them, for instance. Google could create an original music sharing service - YouTube for music - and use it to replace the record industry, but then the industry would basically collapse: studios do a lot more than distribution, they also do promotion, and they do types of promotion Google just can't provide infrastructure for and then leave alone. They'd have to keep much of the system of managers, promos, radio spots, poster campaigns, and so on intact, and just leverage it from above.

It's a pipe dream, mind you: I don't think they'll do it, although they could. But I do believe that if they did to it, it'd be better for just about everyone.