Music streaming services are the culmination of decades of innovations in technology and the music industry. We have come a long way to be able to listen to any and all music at the touch of a button. However, there are still some negative sentiments about modern music streaming services.
As with anything, there are some pain points among music streaming consumers. In this post, we will discuss some of the biggest ones.
The Biggest Pain Points of Music Streaming Consumers
1. Unwanted Ads and the High Cost of Removing them
As incredible as music streaming services are, consumers are perhaps most upset about unwanted advertisements during their listening experience. Streaming platforms typically remove all ads for paid customers, but free users have to witness unwanted ads.
Of course, these ads are a major source of revenue for music streaming services that offer free listening to consumers, but too many ads are a serious pain point for many. Some services are overpriced, and the high subscription cost of removing ads and gaining features starts can be felt more when you consider the remaining pain points.
2. Buggy Applications
Poor platform performance is another serious pain point for consumers. Issues like faulty features, slow music buffering, glitches, and server failures are all annoyances that fall under the umbrella of bugs.
While mobile applications are the main channel for these issues, even web applications can suffer serious bugs like server failures that completely shut off the platform online. Developing robust applications, maintaining dedicated servers, implementing rigorous testing efforts, and providing regular updates are just a few key ways these issues can be mitigated.
Unfortunately, app development, updates, and testing require money and resources that most music streaming services may not be willing to spend regularly. However, a simple built-in consumer reporting feature to help identify bugs is an easy way for them to target bigger issues.
Forums and online chatter about bugs can also provide feedback for these platforms, allowing them to address the most talked-about bugs and issues.
3. Poor Music Recommendations
Consumer expectations are high in the modern world. We want our devices and applications to know more about our tastes and preferences than anyone, including ourselves. With the technological advancements of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), music recommendations no longer require human input.
A key pain point for consumers is the poor music recommendations provided by these algorithms. For example, a user could be listening to an electronic music playlist, and the platform may recommend some rock music to them, a genre that doesn’t fit their preferences.
Another issue that falls in this category is that users may be listening to a personalized playlist, which may eventually start playing off-theme genres down the line. Music streaming services should fix these issues in their AI and ML algorithms so that they recommend music that is more relevant and in line with the user’s preferences.
4. Lack of Certain Music
Another big pain point is the lack of certain music or songs on streaming services. Music streaming services are not like video streaming services. Consumers typically only subscribe to one. Just around 20 percent of consumers use more than one music streaming service.
In contrast, an average American subscriber uses more than three video services. Hence, music streaming services should strive to make their platform a one-stop shop for listeners. Users shouldn’t have to switch or subscribe to other platforms to listen to their favorite artists.
Of course, getting every artist and record label onboard is easier said than done, and competition in the industry is a major reason for this drawback. Still, platforms should do their best to maintain good rapport with creators, artists, and record labels.
Final Words
These were the biggest pain points of music streaming consumers, but of course, there are plenty more that are not as big, and we can discuss them another time. For now, as a music streaming consumer, your best bet to mitigate such problems is to write about them to your music streaming service.
You can contact them through social media channels or their official emails. While it may seem futile, you would be surprised to learn how effective customer feedback can be for such services. They may not respond or resolve your pain points immediately, but when a pain point is big enough or popular enough, they will put solutions into action, and these issues may get resolved over time.
