Limited edition vinyls to unreleased tracks, in the world of unlimited streaming artificial scarcity is the new way to make a profit from your fans.
For many of us it is hard to fathom our parents having to go to the shop and buy a vinyl of the songs you were desperate to listen to, whilst we have every song at our fingertips. With everything moving online, few things have taken more victims than the online ticket queues. We have all experienced the soul destroying experience of missing tickets for a gig you were desperate to go to, or an album you needed to hear. The music industry is utilising artificial scarcity in the new digital age to address the market gap that unlimited streaming has left.
The wonderful marketing tool that recreates queuing for record releases, long before the days when streaming was king. Whether it’s a limited edition release from Taylor Swift or Frank Ocean’s unprompted vinyl releases that sell out instantly. Whilst streaming was supposed to increase access to music, it has simply just shifted the desire for experiences to be physical and tangible again, and people are willing to pay for it – a lot.
None have mastered this tactic as much as Taylor Swift, whose recent album releases have been paired with an array of vinyl variants; various colours, covers, bonus tracks and limited availability making them a coveted item. Fans are no longer encouraged to just buy albums, but instead to collect them, setting countdown clocks and obsessing over exclusive drops. What may have once been a single album purchase instead becomes a collection.
This is not limited to physical music by any means, but has seeped into live performance too. With artists such as Fred again announcing shows for his USB002 tour, tickets disappeared within minutes across various venues worldwide. The announcement of the gig and then tickets being released the same day created a scramble that saw resell tickets at nearly double the price of originals.
Even now large scale events rely on this scarcity to generate hype and demand around the event, the chaotic ticket battle for Oasis’s long rumored shows, exposed the mechanics of dynamic pricing where ticket costs vary due to real time demands.
This artificial scarcity is the newest marketing begs the question; how much of this is real demand, and how much of it is being engineered?
Music itself isn’t scarce anymore. Streaming was supposed to resolve that lack of access surrounding music purchasing. Every song ever made is sitting on your phone, ready to play. There is no natural shortage and subsequently the profits from the music disappear. To combat this, scarcity gets built in. Limited drops. Timed releases. “Exclusive” versions. All of it designed to create urgency in a world where nothing is supposed to feel urgent anymore.
And it works. Suddenly, listening isn’t enough to be a fan. You have to act. You have to be quick, aware, and in the know. Being a fan becomes something slightly more stressful and slightly more competitive. Being a fan means you don’t just listen to the music, but instead you own every part of it. It shifts the experience of enjoying music from something shared to something earned.
The use of social media has only amplified the issue. There is now constant documentation of the status and success of these artificially scarce products. New vinyls are held up to the camera, a confirmation email screenshot, a wristband from a show most people couldn’t get into. It’s not just about liking something anymore, it’s about proving that you wanted it more than the other fans around you.
There is an uncomfortable underlying truth in all this, that addresses the issue of access. Access isn’t equal and it never was, but now it’s more obvious. Limited releases reward the people who have time to sit refreshing pages, money to buy multiple album versions, flexibility to drop everything for a surprise gig. What looks like spontaneity is often anything but.
Then resale comes in and makes it worse. Tickets originally bought for £40 reappear for £200 within minutes. Vinyl triples in price before it’s even shipped. This dynamic has quickly turned a fandom into a marketplace. At that point, it’s hard not to wonder what’s actually being valued.
The music hasn’t changed. The song is still there, still streamable, still infinitely available. What’s changed is the status that now comes with being a fan of music. Scarcity has become the thing that gives music weight again. Not because it’s rare, but because it feels rare. Because it might disappear. Because you might miss it. In a streaming based world where music is much more accessible, that feeling is powerful and therefore heavily utilised. It changes the experience and becoming a fan of certain artists starts to feel less like something you stumble into, and more like something you either get or you don’t.
Image Credit: Sam Neil
