Has the Internet Devalued Music? A Deep Dive into Oversupply, AI, and the Algorithm Economy

Not long ago, music was scarce. Albums were bought, not streamed. Radio DJs curated taste. Labels were gatekeepers. If you wanted to be heard, you needed talent, timing, and a serious budget. Fast forward to now, and we're drowning in music — infinite catalogs, millions of artists, and new songs uploaded every second.

But has this explosion in supply, powered by the internet and streaming platforms, devalued music in the economic and cultural sense? And how are new forces like AI and algorithm-driven platforms shaping what we hear — and what we never get to?

Let’s break it down.

1. The Oversupply Problem: When Everyone’s a Musician

With the rise of Spotify, SoundCloud, Bandcamp, and TikTok, anyone can release music. That’s both exciting and problematic.

• The barrier to entry is gone. You don’t need a label, you don’t need expensive studio time — just a laptop, a mic, and an internet connection.

• Millions of tracks flood platforms daily. Your carefully crafted song isn’t just competing with other artists — it’s competing with noise.

From a pure supply and demand standpoint, this massive oversupply reduces the monetary value of individual songs. Artists make fractions of pennies per stream. Unless you're in the millions of plays, you won’t make rent.

Meanwhile, listeners have more options than ever, leading to decision fatigue and a sense that nothing sticks anymore. Albums don’t last. Hits come and go in a flash.

2. Artists Are Poorer (Unless You're a Superstar)

Streaming killed download revenue. And while it's great for listeners, it's brutal for most creators:

• Spotify pays $0.003–$0.005 per stream. That’s about $4 per 1,000 streams.

• Touring is expensive and saturated.

• Merch and Patreon help, but that requires a fanbase you may never build if you're lost in the algorithm.

The result? The middle class of musicians is disappearing. There's money at the top — Beyoncé, Drake, Swift — and scraps at the bottom. No safety net in between.

3. Discovery is Broken: The Algorithm Decides Now

Here’s the twist: It’s not just about how much music there is. It’s how we find it.

Curation used to be human. Now it’s AI. Algorithms on YouTube, Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram decide what gets surfaced — and what gets buried.

• The algorithm prioritizes engagement, not quality.

• Repeatability and virality beat originality.

• Safe, familiar sounds win over challenging art.

That’s why so much music sounds the same. Playlists are optimized for mood, vibes, and background listening — not artistry. You’re no longer competing with other musicians. You’re competing with the attention economy.

4. Enter AI: Creativity’s Final Boss?

Now AI is making its way into music production. Tools like Suno, Boomy, and Udio let anyone create songs with a few prompts. No instruments. No vocals. No songwriting.

• Yes, it democratizes creation further.

• But it also floods the ecosystem with synthetic content.

• Worse, AI is often trained on real artists’ work — without consent.

As AI-generated music becomes indistinguishable from human work, it risks erasing the emotional, flawed, deeply human part of music. Not because listeners don't care — but because platforms may prefer synthetic content that’s cheaper, faster, and safer to license.

In this world, true creativity struggles to survive.

5. From Scarcity to Saturation: What’s Music Worth Now?

When music was scarce, we paid for it. We cherished albums. We sat with them.

Now, music is a utility — an endless background to our scrolling. And while it's more accessible than ever, it's arguably less valued than ever.

This doesn’t mean there’s no good music. There’s more great music than ever — but less infrastructure to support the artists who make it. And the combination of oversupply, low payouts, algorithmic dominance, and AI interference is creating an environment where it’s harder than ever to survive as a creative.

Final Thought: What Now?

We’re not going back to the old days. But we can rethink how we support and discover real artistry:

• Follow and fund independent musicians directly.

• Support platforms that put curation before clicks.

• Push for ethical AI and fairer payout models.

• Demand transparency from algorithms that shape our culture.

Because music still matters. Art still matters. But if we’re not careful, we might scroll past it without even realizing what we’ve lost.