I came up with some theory, sometime ago, in an attempt to categorize users who’d pay for internet/online services that aren’t B2B in Nigeria, based on a hierarchy of factors. Its more in line with @akindolu 's grouping.
Set 1 may consciously or subconsciously pay for a service that brings convenience, impact on status quo, and/or whether it’s entertaining.
Set 2 on the other hand would pay for services they consider a neccesity, or a service they believe will bring income or increase the odds of them making money, or just for sheer entertainment.
Selling music online to Africans, how many times have we been through this though in the 20 years of mainstream internet? Anyway, I don’t think there will ever be a shortage of starry-eyed young techpreneurs willing to tackle this space, no matter how big the graveyard of music startups grows.
What’s always been funny to me though is that you’ll find most music startup founders pirate their music, movies, series etc. Even a big artist like Kanye last year was caught pirating music while shamelessly turning around to demand we buy. So is music purchase supposed to work on greater fool theory? Because you have to be a complete fool to buy music in this day and age, especially in 3rd world countries where people are fighting with their stomachs, how can we now start buying music? Even a simple Google search of a song nowadays yields pirate results prominently on the first page. Let’s take the example of the current Billboard #1:
The demographics support music but the economics is against it. The young in Africa just don’t have much disposable income and there is a limit on how you monetize a music loving but naira pinching young Nigerian with a Bluetooth phone in a country with rampant piracy? . Methinks 30 naira per download is even too expensive. Maybe the real price should be 1 naira per song. Maybe selling all you can eat packages as in download 300 songs for 500 naira would be the way to go. Maybe the model shouldn’t even be about selling music but selling ads as radio has profitably done for donkey years.
Thanks for sharing Gabe. I remember reading that article when it was published by @OoTheNigerian.
Interestingly reading again, and I think MyMusic may have just ticked all the boxes listed here in this paragraph:
Any Nigerian music startup that wants to make it somewhat big (> $2million.year revenue) cannot buy music first of all. Secondly, they MUST align with a brand that will carry most of the operating cost in exchange for marketing exposure (meaning you must be big). Then focusing on creating value and sharing with the artists AFTER the value has been created. Alternatively, align with an organization who you will add value to even if independently, you cannot be profitable. e.g Like Spinlet is with Etisalat.
Whether they will make it big is now a matter of time. I am watching (and sipping on my cup of tea)
The delusion is real. What’s the value they are creating for the artists based on this?
With all politeness, Nigerian music startups in general have added practically zero value to Nigerian music therefore it is going to be extremely hard to capture value where you have not created it. A model that depends on extracting money from from an artist after (s)he has become popular is quite wishful thinking.
I think my earliest post of how artistes are more willing to give out music for free almost summarizes most of Oo’s post.
Mymusic should not bother about value for artistes. The music is free any way, on notjuskok. They should rather focus on the “dumbass” fellas that will pay for what is free on the Internet street.
The group 2 Internet users whose Internet is just Facebook and 2go.
Now @nubikayode and the incredible founders of mymusic, which will anyone rather do, even with 1/4 brain?
Mind you, to search on Google is free. And most people have heard of Google. And in my search, I didn’t even add mp3 download. My search term was “Kom Kom”, and first result was a free download link. Opari.
Allow me shed a little more light into some of our thought process and direction.
We have recently launched the MyMusic Bloggers Partnership Programme (MBPP) and we’ve been performing some experiments to quickly get some validated learning. We’ve been getting some very good response from bloggers willing to participate. e.g http://naijafuse.com.ng/download-yemi-alade-mama-africa-album-download-full/
We are in discussions and partnerships with a number of DMCA firms alongside some content owners for takedowns of infringing links. We are set to get this rolling very soon. A-list artistes don’t want to give out their music for free, they heavily promote for iTunes. They’ve not seen any successful local alternatives hence they turn a blind eye when their music is posted illegally for free.
Learning from the psychology of consumer behaviour, consumers always want convenience and value. Our ethos is to provide Convenience and Value. There is also a thing to be learnt in providing music discovery as against just search, retrieve and download.
As quoted earlier: “People who are motivated to steal music will continue to do so. But if you make stealing more trouble than it’s worth by making digital music easy to find and purchase, and you price it reasonably, the vast majority of people will choose to buy rather than steal”
Since it would be a harder sell convincing the content creators to paddlock the free flow of their content, pun intended, behind mymusic ‘pay-wall’ and exclusives. Same thing Iroking did, rather tried to do. Content creators have been hearing similar proposition since the days of Iroking et al but things would sooner slide back to the free meals, time and time again.
However going through content distributors (major music bloggers/platforms) presents a more promising approach. That is if they adopt it all at once.
I mean for the bloggers they are not cashing out or paying server bills off smileys or comments on their sites. So anything that presents an extra beef on revenue to the adsense and adnets earnings, would be most welcome.
I think Mymusic should layer other incentives for paying for music. If after my 50th purchase with Mymusic I get to handout in concert with my favourite star, that wouldnt be such a bad idea.
For the DCMA guys. They simply dont have the resources. You’d be doing the takedown yourself.
Brother to Integrate to Telcos can set you back about 1 Year +, to get VAS License from NCC that one na you and God know when it will come out, then you pay for fees, then pitch your product to the Telcos to add you on the list, then doing testing to see if your core system is compatible and then marketing blast( you would have to clean your database, MTN and others wont do it for you), geo-targeting, building your VAS System sets you another 1 year, the big boys in VAS arent using CRBTs anymore but doing Campaigns for Brands to stay alive, so i wont advice you think because some people by Ring back tunes you should go that route.
Best thing i think we can try is to see if we can restrict codecs or encrypt them so you can only listen to a song, you cant share, you cant download, you cant copy because it links to your device only( till the tech comes) OR a thorough clamp down on free music sites or blogs( impossible)
Best thing they can hope for is the changing dynamics of the country via broadband penetration growth and other factors like rising middle class and hence are creating Strategy for the future where younger generations will prefer to stream than download and Maybe pay a little to do so.
Alternatively, Music sites that make us download songs can be enforced that for every download they pay royalty to Artiste( be it 50 kobo or so, maybe when guys begin losing money they will push for Streaming instead)
That is absolutely the worst advice you can give to a music startup in 2016 though. I mean, history of DRM’d songs so far? Even if we bring it back home, songs purchased through Spinlet could only be listened to on Spinlet, at least back in the day. For a company that hasn’t reached the level of ubiquity they have apps on pretty much any platform you can imagine, that means if I buy songs on my phone, I can’t listen to them on my laptop, or TV, etc.
But, there is a trend that must be mentioned in Nigeria. Sometimes I see people who fall under the group 3 categorisation using very hard to use complicated apps.
What happens is, when one person learns how to use something, others will follow suite. According to “NIR Eyal” author of the boom “hooked” hardest thing to do is form new habits. But when new habits are formed, it’s hard to break.
So I must subtly disagree. Since “the average Joe” can use Facebook, and understands multitasking on android, why won’t he use “my music”. " Just make the app addictive" let it offer a feature that used to be hard to get, but no longer is. Shouldn’t be hard to do right?
PS: not contradicting myself, but. Nigerians most times think they have “paid for something” simply because they got it online. Growing up, the mentality I was given by an older friend is that, everything online is free.
I remember asking a friend to check out my site, his epic reply was: “so that my MB will be turning to money for you abi?”.
This begs the question, how many Nigerians realise what the internet actually is?
Just saying.
Edit
I just saw ads on the website, that’s a no no if you ask me, c’mon ads make websites difficult to use . and since I’m paying for music from your site, I don’t expect to see ads on it. It’s not one of these blogs afteral.
