Report: Apple, Spotify, Google Prepare For Music War

“We're not even at early days yet,” Russ Crupnick, the managing partner of MusicWatch, told Business Insider, referring to paid subscriptions to streaming services. “We haven't even hit the early adopters.”

Crupnick said that the people who pay for streaming are akin to those who decades ago were the first to buy LaserDisc and CD players.

Although the majority of people over 13 listen to music online — they stream using free services like Pandora, YouTube, iHeartRadio, or the free version of Spotify — only about one in 13 of those actually pay to do it, according to MusicWatch.

“Is streaming mainstream? I would say absolutely,” Crupnick said. “Is paying for streaming mainstream? [There’s a] long way to go.”

There are more ways to listen to music today than ever before. Long gone are the days where you relied on the radio to hear new music, and you could only build up your own music collection by visiting the record store to buy records, tapes, or CDs.

Now, in addition to traditional radio, CDs, vinyl, and their own purchased MP3s, people can listen to music through Internet radio services like Pandora, free and paid versions of streaming services like Spotify, through their TV providers, via satellite radio, through countless apps on their phones like iHeartRadio, and even by typing a song or artist into YouTube.

The market now is more fragmented than ever.