UNLIMITED SUPPLY with Digital Music News A frightening statistic, Kyncl Speaks and Kesha refreshes.
Mar 4, 2026
A look at a startling stat: nearly half of U.S. users now turn to TikTok for search and the risks that raises. Coverage of TikTok outages and reliability problems that shake creators and platforms. Discussion of how third parties hijack influencer audiences to sell knockoffs. A music-rights kerfuffle after the White House used a pop song without permission.
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More Payers But Half The Revenue Per User
- Streaming growth now means more payers but far lower per-user revenue.
- Warner Music Group letter notes ARPU is nearly 50% below 1999 when adjusted for inflation, so scale alone won't sustain the business.
Amazon Pulls Back After Buying Wondery
- Amazon spent roughly $300 million on Wondery at its podcast peak and has now shuttered the network.
- Lars Murray frames Wondery shutting under Amazon Music as a retreat and a marker of podcast–music industry misalignment.
TikTok Is Becoming A Primary Search Engine
- Nearly 50% of U.S. users now use TikTok as a search engine, prioritizing short video results over nuance.
- That shift forces artists and marketers to prioritize TikTok content for discoverability despite algorithmic opacity and risk.