Both Val­ley­wag and Sil­i­con Alley Insid­er point out that one of the rea­sons Mux­tape shut down prob­a­bly was­n’t the R.I.A.A., but all the costs asso­ci­at­ed with run­ning a mas­sive stream­ing music data­base. One of the things I’ve noticed about Web 2.0 is that music con­tent is seen as more of a lia­bil­i­ty than an asset when grow­ing a busi­ness, as the Mux­tape shut­down demon­strates. That is to say, there’s prob­a­bly no bailout com­ing, at least not for Mux­tape as we knew it. The bot­tom line is if you’re bull­ish on “music 2.0,” Mux­tape’s sit­u­a­tion should be a case study for any­one who’s try­ing to find the right niche for music online.

Read­WriteWeb has a must-read post for any­one who’s pay­ing atten­tion to what’s hap­pen­ing with Pan­do­ra and Mux­tape this week. As wi-fi becomes more pow­er­ful and wide­ly avail­able, I think more peo­ple will want on-demand dig­i­tal deliv­ery, rather than be bur­dened by the moun­tains of phys­i­cal prod­uct they rip to an mp3 play­er any­way. It’s equal­ly impor­tant for artists and labels look­ing to max­i­mize prof­its by cut­ting out the middleman.

Will it be free, like many of the ser­vices peo­ple enjoy today? Prob­a­bly not, but con­ve­nience and price will be major fac­tors as music like­ly tran­si­tions from a prod­uct in itself to some­thing that’s bun­dled with oth­er ser­vices. We’re already see­ing it with some mobile devices, and it’s prob­a­bly safe to say that this will quick­ly become an indus­try standard.

As the events of the past week have shown, not all stream­ing music ser­vices will sur­vive, nor do they deserve to sim­ply because they’re inno­vat­ing in the online music space. As the music indus­try grows more des­per­ate for rev­enue streams, you can only expect that the play­ers involved will be tough on those that do make it. We’re on the eve of a rev­o­lu­tion in the way we con­sume movies and music. No one said it would be easy.

Check out the arti­cle at Read­WriteWeb and share your thoughts on what would make stream­ing music bet­ter for you!