In recent years streaming has been portrayed as the long awaited practical alternative to piracy. The market has a lot of big name competitors, including Apple, Spotify, and Sony. A recent newcomer to the streaming service is Google, who launched their streaming service back in August of this year. Google’s streaming service is currently integrated with their Play store. While the store has a vast selection of music available for a very competitive price (£10), Google has yet to establish themselves as a dominant force in the market. This might all change this upcoming December.
Youtube, a subsidiary of Google, is rumoured to be entering the streaming service by “launching” their own streaming service. Although integrating an already existing streaming service into their website can hardly be said to be “launching” anything. Nevertheless, the improved service could have a significant impact on expanding the streaming music market.
Statistically, Youtube is one of the largest websites in the world garnering over a billion unique visitors per month. Comparatively, Spotify has had only 24 million users in the last thirty days. Thus, it is possible that Youtube could introduce a wider audience to the world streaming. This is of course assuming that the service is available to the entirety of the one billion unique visitors, most likely the service will be first available in the United States and will eventually be available in other countries.
