(Hypebot) – A new study shows most people are fine with renting music through streaming services rather than owning it. But with fewer users paying for multiple subscriptions, streaming may be hitting its limit.
Most people are fine with Renting Music rather than Owning it, study finds
by Bobby Owsinski via Music 3.0
For the majority of time that the music business has been around, people have purchased the music they listen to. Be it wax cylinders, vinyl records, CDs, cassettes – whatever physical format you can think of – consumers were perfectly happy buying the music that they liked. Today we’ve made a 180 on that thinking in the people are very happy to rent their music thanks to whatever streaming service they’ve subscribed to, according to a new study by Edison Research.
“Just over one-half of Americans 13+ (51%) pay for at least one audio subscription service as of Q1 2025,” Edison says, citing its Share of Ear for Q1 2025. “This is primarily composed of people paying for one audio subscription service: 35% of Americans 13+. Some people pay for more than one service. Fully 10% of Americans 13+ subscribe to two audio services and an additional 6% pay for more than two subscription services.”
There’s A Problem With That
But there’s much more to it than that. According to the study, “Since 2022, the percentage of people who pay for more than two audio services has declined from 13% in Q4 of 2022 to 6% in Q4 2025. As a result, the percentage who pay for just one service has increased from 28% to 35%.”
What that means is that subscribers are tightening their belts. Those that never thought much about paying for that extra subscription are now saving some money with just a single sub.
And who can blame them? The problem with most music distributors is that they all have the same products. You can find the same hits and non-hits on Spotify as you can on Apple Music as you can on Deezer, so why pay for more than one?
The only difference between services these days is the user interface, although some are trying to become social networks as well in an effort to differentiate themselves from the pack (which isn’t going well, by the way).
Add to that the fact that in most mature music economies streaming subscriptions have pretty much plateaued. Everyone who was able to subscribe has already done so. Not only that, because of the current consumer apprehension over inflation, job losses, and tariffs, some paying subscribers are actually pulling back to the free tier.
As a result, we’ve probably hit “peak streaming” in many countries around the world even though people are perfectly happy to rent their music. Unless subscription prices rise (which they are), the pool of money from streaming is about as large as it can get. That should be causing some panic in boardrooms around the industry.
Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.
