Revel Lever®

I have been thinking about the ‘proto-market’ lately because of an exciting project I am currently working on called Drummer Hunter, a website dedicated to helping drummers and bands connect. It primarily services the ‘proto-market’, the local and small scale music scenes where new talent and styles emerge. The ‘proto-market’ exists at the edge of the sphere of commercial music production.

And so after some googling, I stumbled upon this article, The Changing Face of the Music Industry, that does a nice job of connecting the ‘proto-market’ with the Long Tail. I think it is from 2005, but still relevant.

FYI - Jason Toynbee was a professor of mine. Here is a summary in which I have extracted a few bits and pieces:

As a backdrop to the here and now in which the struggle for the survival of the major record company is being played out, Jason Toynbee’s Institutional Autonomy or IA theory (2000) in recognizing what he describes as ‘proto-markets’ is of real value. Proto-markets include the musicians who exist outside the present commodified structure of the music industry i.e. the vast majority. The notion of the proto-market identifies the groups and individuals that arguably stand to gain most from the collapse of the major label system. These proto-markets contribute to the first stage of IA theory undisciplined labor force that exist largely autonomously of record companies.

In the world of the Long Tail there is no such thing as over-supply and everything has a chance of consumption. Combine enough non-hits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits…the biggest money is in the smallest sales…the market that lies outside the reach of the physical retailer is big and getting bigger. As a result, almost anything is worth offering on the off chance it will find a buyer… In a Long Tail economy, it’s more expensive to evaluate than to release. Just do it!

The main predicament the major labels have is summed up by channel conflict, whereas the labels fear that if they price online music lower, their CD retailers will revolt or more likely go out of business more quickly than they actually are. As obvious as this may seem there are further problems. The choice facing fans is not how many songs to buy in digital download form, but how many songs to buy rather than download for free. Intuitively, consumers know that free music is not really free: aside from any legal risks, it’s a time-consuming hassle to build a collection…

With so much music available, consumers will eventually prefer to rent and have more choice than just buy and own some of the music they like. ‘By offering fair pricing, ease of use, and consistent quality, you can compete with free.’ (Anderson:2004:p8) This in effect returns music to its pre-recorded days of service as opposed to product. ‘Drastically lower prices for music products and you will see piracy disappear quickly.’ (Leonhard 2004:P8)

Or as Adorno (1941) would contend, ‘Popular music becomes a multiple choice questionnaire,’ with ‘music as largely social cement.’

For the Artists who currently occupy the ‘proto-market’ to produce recordings and make them available on the Internet, in a Long Tail economy, they will eventually find a buyer/renter/fan.

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