Despite these difficult times, the global music industry overall is expected to nearly double in value to U.S. 142 billion by 2030, as the crisis pushes towards a greater consumption of online music, increased reliance on social media to find talent, and live streaming.

The industry’s long-term growth outlook is driven by the secular growth of paid streaming, growing demand for music content, new licensing opportunities and positive regulatory developments.

Goldman Sachs sees global paid subscriptions rising to 1.22 billion in 2030, due to faster-than-expected paid streaming adoption, the popularity of new services, and new markets.

Record labels, with their 52%-58% royalty rates, will be big beneficiaries of streaming. The streaming share of recorded music revenue should rise to 86% in 2030, driving a 7% compound annual growth rate for the recorded music market over 2020 – 2030.

For live music, recovery will depend on regulations around social distancing and crowd-like events. Goldman analysts expect 4% to 5% annual growth rates to hit U.S. 39 billion by 2030, helped in part by new monetization opportunities.

The swedish Spotify should keep its leadership, but competition may also intensify: from new players like the american Amazon Music and chinese ByteDance.

Other big players are Apple Music (in the Western world), Sony Music (in Japan and in the Western world), Tencent Music Entertainment (in China). And YouTube may be well-placed to grab growing usage and monetization of music videos.

The landascape of the digital music industry is challenging, and the sound can be interesting both for music lovers and for musicians connected to the contemporary world.