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Kendrick Lamar. Drake. Lady Gaga. The charts of music streaming services pretty much all look the same these days, with familiar names dominating the top spotsexcept on up-and-coming Spotify competitor Audiomack. The current No. 1 album on Audiomack belongs to Nigerias Seyi Vibez, whose hypnotic Afrobeats tracks have amassed around 1.8 billion plays on the platform. Vibez is one of many African and Caribbean artists who have found breakout success on the platform. Many of them consistently draw larger audiences on Audiomack than on Spotify or Apple Music, largely due to the platforms strong presence in local markets. We are the most-used streaming service in a large swath of Africa, says Audiomack cofounder Brian Zisook. We’re No. 1 on iOS and Android in Nigeria and Ghana. The company boasts 58 billion-plus songs streamed in Nigeria alone. Half of Audiomacks audience of 40 million monthly listeners comes from the continent. Audiomacks rise in West Africa was initially unintentional, but it has since become a case study in the potential of emerging markets and how smaller music platforms can thrive alongside industry giants like Spotify and Apple Music. From a mixtape hub to an Afrobeats force When Zisook and Dave Macli founded Audiomack in New York in 2012, they just wanted to make it easier for local hip-hop DJs to distribute their mixtapes. At the time, many DJs relied on questionable file-sharing sites, creating a poor experience for fans. Those websites were strewn with pop-up [ads] and malware, Zisook recalls. If you downloaded a mixtape, you had to worry that you were going to crash your family computer. Audiomack grew steadily in Western markets, but never really broke through against its much bigger competitors. All that changed seemingly overnight in 2019 when West African musicians and their fans began flocking to the service en masse. We just took off, Zisook says. The growth was a hockey stick. To adapt, Macli and Zisook hired a local team in Nigeria, gaining valuable insights into their new market. The mistake that so many in the industry made was to view Africa as a monolith, Zisook says. If you are in Tanzania or Liberia, nothing is going to offend you more than only being served Nigerian, Ghanaian, or South African songs. Betting on Africa as a growth market for music streaming is savvy, believes MIDiA Research senior music industry analyst Tatiana Cirisano. As Western markets reach saturation, most future streaming growth will come from Global South regions, of which Africa is an important part, she argues. It was smart for Audiomack to position itself as a key player here. Betting on Africas music boom Cirisano cautions, however, that business models that work in the West may not easily translate to emerging markets. African countries have a lower average revenue per user than countries like the U.S. and U.K., she says. Even though Africas impact on global music culture and consumption continues to grow, its impact on global music revenue is not matching that growth. It’s very difficult to monetize music in Africa, acknowledges Zisook. You have a young audience that has limited or no disposable income, and a lack of access to credit and debit cards. They pay for things online using gift cards. So there’s no opportunity for consistent subscriptions. There’s a lot of churn. They have hard capped data plans, and they have unreliable or no Wi-Fi. Audiomack responded to this by striking bundling deals with local cellphone carriers. The company also integrated alternative revenue streams for musicians: Fans can become direct financial supporters of their favorite artists on the platform, and in exchange get badges and bragging rights. Its a clever way for Audiomack to differentiate itself from the competition, Cirisano contends, noting, The traditional streaming business doesnt monetize fandom, or depth of engagementit monetizes pure consumption. Thriving alongside giants like Spotify Scaling a business works for streaming giants like Spotify, which recently reported its first full year of profitability. But it has been much more challenging for second-tier services like Tidal, which reportedly laid off 100 staffers last fall. Audiomack could provide a blueprint for these smaller services to compete with, and prosper alongside the big guys. In addition to further growing its user base in Africa, Audiomack also courts expats across Western markets. A lot of our growth in Canada, U.K., Germany, and France is diasporic, Zisook says. Ghanaians in Germany, Nigerians in France. At the same time, the company is striking licensing agreements with major labels to gain access to more of their catalogs. This attracts Western listeners familiar with hip-hop while introducing them to Seyi Vibez and other Afrobeats stars. That way, Audiomack can become a complementary service for Western audiences looking to dive deeper into different music genres. The same folks who listen to Spotify at work might use Audiomack later in the day to more actively discover music, express their fandom, and access a catalog that is not available on mainstream streaming services, Cirisano says.
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E-Commerce
Teenage YouTube users across the world will now get automatic reminders to go to bed and take a break from their screens. YouTube announced this week it was expanding such reminders to minors across the globe, ensuring they are full-screen and toggled-on by default. The feature first debuted in the U.S. seven years ago, and went automatic for minors in 2023. So-called “bedtime” notifications have grown in popularity, buoyed in large part by YouTube and TikTok. But it’s unclear how effective the notifications are in the first place. After all, YouTube users only have to click to close out the banner; on TikTok, its even easier to keep swiping past the text. It will be effective for a small proportion of people, but the onus is still on the user to turn it off, says Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Rutgers School of Public Health. These are all cosmetic things that may work for some people, but arent really going to shift user behavior. The rise of stop scrolling signs YouTube first introduced their overuse warnings back in 2018. At first, it was a simple opt-in take a break notification. By 2020, YouTube revealed that theyd sent more than three billion warnings, and added a bedtime reminder to their suite. This is the same year that TikTok also premiered their screentime management ads, headed by popular creators like Alan Chikin Chow and Gabe Erwin. A few years later, parents amplified concerns about their childrens social media usage. More and more data flooded the web about a teen mental health crisis, with an uptick in depression and anxiety. YouTube responded in 2023 by making their take a break and bedtime reminders more prominent on the screen, and making them mandatory for all American users under 18. TikTok debuted their own sleep reminder and silenced push notifications for users under 18 after 10 p.m. Now, YouTubes changes are global. In a LinkedIn post, Pedro Pina, YouTubes head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, wrote that the program ensures teens time on the platform is well spent. (YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.) But these reminders are still just suggestions: Rutgers’s Allem says that users see them as recommendations for best options, advice that theyre unlikely to take. There is no consequence if an individual acts or doesn’t act on this prompt, he says. It would probably be just as easy as moving on from the post like anything else you werent interested in. The one second that you take determining this isnt interesting so you keep scrolling, would that really be impactful? What does it take for us to actually log off? Beyond some limited content moderation, these warnings are the furthest major social media companies have gone to protect teens from addiction and overuse. But, in the wake of Jonathan Haidts The Anxious Generation and 2024s great upheaval around internet mental health, every pundit has their own ideas for further steps. The Surgeon General recommended cigarette-style warning labels; the State of New York demanded companies tamp down on their recommendation algorithms for minors. Allem rattles off a list of changes that would be more effective at stopping social media overuse. They could mandate lock-outs for minors during nighttime hours. They could force users to pay for increased hours using their apps. Or, the apps could be redesigned all together. Theres no natural stopping point for platforms designed with infinite scroll online, Allem says. We could consider default settings that were programmed to limit use, rather than allowing for unlimited use. But none of these changers are likely to happen anytime soon. All of this can be done quite easily, Allem says. It isnt done because it will tap into and reduce growth and profit.
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E-Commerce
As a child, Sunita Sah says she learned to be good. Growing up in the U.K. in the 1980s as the daughter of Indian immigrants, she was praised for being obedient and studious at home and at school. But she also experienced racial slurs and hostile stares. Sah lived in a place that didnt always welcome differencesand her family was different. Sah had long considered her mother to be a compliant person. Quiet and deferential, her mom was the model of goodness. But one day that changed. When Sah was 7 years old, she and her mother were accosted in an alley by teenage boys, who shouted at them to Go back home. They were alone, vulnerable, and outnumbered. Thats when Sahs mother did something surprising. Rather than shrink under their threats, she stood up straight and confronted them. You think youre clever? she said to the boys. You think youre so strong. Big, tough boys, right? Then it was the boys turn to shrink. They took off, and Sah and her mother continued on. Sah would come to realize that defiance isnt a personality trait, she says. We can choose. Sah, a physician, psychologist, and professor at Cornell Universitys SC Johnson School of Business, has spent much of her career studying decision-making, including how and when we choose to defy. Defiance is not reducible to strength or weakness, courage or cowardice. It is not solely for the brave, the strong, or the extraordinary, she writes in her new book, Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. We all have the capacity to be defiant. WHY DEFIANCE IS SO DIFFICULT Defiancethe decision to act according to your own values when youre pressured to do otherwisemay be a matter of choice, but its certainly not an easy one. Many people find themselves wanting to stand up for what they believe is right, but unable to access that defiance. Nearly all of us have been rewarded for compliant behavior, over and over again. We get good grades in school if we study; we get positive performance reviews at work if we support the companys goals. Compliance is so conditioned, that for many its an automatic response. So when its time to defy and act according to our own principles, it feels unnatural. Compliance can be a good thing, but there is a dangerous side, too, Sah says. We learn quickly that we can keep earning promotions if we go along with shady business practices, or avoid retribution if we look the other way when we see a colleague being harassed. 1. WE DONT KNOW HOW TO DEFY Even if we want to side with our own values over external pressure, we dont always know how. If you see a colleague misleading a client, whom do you tell, and what do you say? Will it be enough to gently nudge someone to investigate the problem, or should you confront the person yourself? If were accustomed to complying, its hard to picture what defiance looks like. 2. WE WORRY ABOUT INSULTING OTHERS Another barrier is what Sah calls “insinuation anxiety, or the fear that we may appear to insult or undermine someone if we question their decisions or behavior. Rather than speaking up, we say nothing to avoid looking insulting or insubordinate. 3. THE COST OF DEFIANCE IS SOMETIMES TOO GREAT For some, the cost of defiance is too risky. Speaking up at work can cost you your paycheck and your healthcare. Weve seen corporate whistleblowers fired, dragged through court, and blacklisted in their industries. When the risk of defying is too great, we sometimes have to defer our defiance to another day when the costs are manageable. LEARNING HOW TO DEFY Defiance is a choice, Sah writes in her new book. Defiance is also a process. Two decades of research have shown Sah that defiance and compliance are not binary, but rather exist on a spectrum . . . encompassing a gradation of understanding, questioning, and action. She believes her mother had likely encountered those boys several times, perhaps defying them in small ways before putting her foot down. The difference between someone who does defy and someone who doesnt is preparation, she explains. Surprise can force us into compliance. Defiance can be practiced in small ways. You can envision yourself in the situation and practice saying aloud what you hope you will be able to say in the moment. The first time we speak up, we might stumble, but with repetition our voice grows more confident, she says. Practice is good because the best time to decide whether to defy or comply is not in the heat of the moment, Sah writes. Pausing can give you time to calculate the risks of defiance and form a plan to respond. Remember: You dont have to defy every time. If youre caught off guard and are unable to respond as youd like to, prepare yourself for the next opportunity. Most acts of defiance are not historic moments, nor are they necessarily memorable ones. But those small moments of defiance can help us build the muscle we need when it matters most. The forces that lead to compliance are more complex than they might appear, but they are not insurmountable, Sah writes. We may not always know how to defy. But we can learn.
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E-Commerce
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