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Evidence for the merits of collecting streaming music

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Abstract

Streaming music applications allow their users to listen to music that they did not collect, making music collecting voluntary for the first time in the history of music consumption. Using a questionnaire (n = 370), we aimed to measure streaming collection size and its relations to other variables. Results showed a large variability in streaming collection size, with a median of only 200 songs. Furthermore, most participants drastically reduced their collection size when moving to streaming technology. Our results nevertheless found extensive evidence for the merits of streaming collections, including (a) collection size positively correlated with both listening hours and listening enjoyment; (b) participants wanted to listen to their favorite music for most of their streaming listening time; (c) young participants collected almost twice as many streaming songs as older participants, indicating that collecting is not an old habit; and (d) participants who enjoyed listening to records/CDs more than streaming were found to have previously been avid collectors who had abandoned collecting for streaming applications. In this paper, we discuss why regardless of these merits, the large majority of our participants reduced their collection size and conclude with suggestions about how the redesigning of streaming applications may encourage users to collect more songs.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. Based on https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/music-subscriber-market-shares-q2-2021 retrieved on July 17, 2022.

  2. As indicated in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album retrieved on July 26, 2021.

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Acknowledgements

We thank our participants for their time and effort.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Science Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Ofer Bergman & Noa Gradovitch

  2. Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    Steve Whittaker

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  1. Ofer Bergman
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Correspondence to Ofer Bergman.

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Bergman, O., Whittaker, S. & Gradovitch, N. Evidence for the merits of collecting streaming music. Pers Ubiquit Comput 27, 331–342 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-022-01692-y

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