How will music be profitable in the future? In the recent Rolling Stone article, “The Fall of the Record Business: What Next?” five music industry pros theorize on possible scenarios.

Theory 1: Ad-Supported Music
Yahoo! Music General Manager Ian Rogers says all music will be free - paid for by ads - and any song by any artist will be accessible from anywhere in the world.

“I can imagine a future where you just consume a hell of a lot of music - just hit ‘play’ on any player, and hear music. There’s an ad experience there, and we’ll pay the labels a percentage of that ad revenue. All devices will be connected to a network and we can find anything we want and hit ‘play’ without connecting our device to our computer and dragging a physical file over. People are going to have the expectation that they can get to anything whenever they want to.”

There is already evidence to support this idea in companies like We7 and the number of media sites integrating the model of ad revenue sharing. Another theory in the article speculates labels will change their stripes and take on more management and publishing roles. A solution that makes sense, but not likely to see this in the near future. Terry McBride, who I am usually a big fan of, presents the idea that consumers might become retailers. I see that as a logistical nightmare. Read the other four theories here.