Streaming has established itself as an indispensable part of everyday life – and it’s arguably still in its infancy. Here, we explore the journey of this technology from its inception.
Streaming has revolutionized the way we consume media – and it would be difficult to imagine life without it.
In fact, streaming services are the preferred method of video consumption for almost three-quarters of adults (73%), outperforming traditional TV (15%) and broadcast (6%), according to Adtaxi’s 2024 TV & Video Streaming Survey.
From films and TV shows to music and even video games, streaming technology has altered the way in which we interact with media and each other.
But how did we get here? And why has streaming become the format of choice for so many different kinds of media?
1990s: The humble beginning of internet streaming
Streaming may feel like a recent innovation, but the roots of its technology go back to the early days of the internet.
During the mid-1990s, companies like Xing Technology and Starlight Networks began experimenting with streaming audio and video.
However, these early efforts were limited by the slow nature of dial-up internet, which caused poor playback and longer buffering times, providing a frustrating user experience.
Rob Glaser, informally titled the “the king of streaming” in a 1999 article published by WIRED magazine, and his company RealNetworks played a crucial role during this era with the introduction of RealAudio in 1995.
RealAudio allowed users to listen to music online without downloading entire files, a significant step forward at the time.
Following this, the company launched RealVideo to extend these capabilities to video content, marking some of the first steps towards on-demand streaming services.
2000s: The internet’s global takeover
The early 2000s saw a dramatic shift in accessibility as the internet boomed and began entering homes across the world.
Improvements in speed, technology, and reliability allowed ambitious developers to create more exciting platforms that better utilized the capabilities of streaming.
This included a certain music platform called Napster.
Launched in 1999, Napster is often viewed as the precursor of Spotify. Several copyright issues, however, including well-publicized battles with Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre, meant it met a swift end in 2001.
Nevertheless, the concept of peer-to-peer file sharing was born and Napster demonstrated the potential for digital music distribution.
This lit the match for the fire that was the development of new streaming services.
Founded in 2005, YouTube transformed online video by allowing users to easily upload, share, and view content, making the potential for user-generated videos clear.
Still considered the most popular video-streaming platform in the world, despite the rise of Netflix and other TV subscription services, YouTube’s success underscored the growing appetite for on-demand video content.
During this same period, image-sharing platforms like Flickr and Instagram started to gain popularity.
While these platforms did not use streaming technology as such, they did introduce features such as image editing and social sharing, which made the process of publishing images online more interactive.
Here arguably began the trend of platforms using new content, personalization, and engagement features to keep users hooked and maintain their attention, a now-familiar principle in many of today’s online environments.
2010s: Streaming embeds itself into our daily lives – and goes further than expected
The widespread adoption of smart devices, together with advancements by tech-enabled platforms like Netflix and Spotify, gave users access to a greater number of libraries of on-demand content than ever before.
This convenience and affordability spurred a dramatic change in media consumption habits, which we still see today.
The rise of streaming platforms fueled a boom in US scripted television, with a record-breaking 532 scripted shows produced in 2019. This marked a staggering 153% increase from 2009, when there were just 210 series.
Netflix soon became a household name, while Amazon launched its on-demand video service. But, arguably, the most successful company to adopt this streaming–subscription revenue model was Spotify.
In the 2010s, Spotify began offering a freemium model, with huge amounts of music available across all devices.
This convenience, coupled with Spotify’s innovative features, made buying CDs or downloads feel outdated.
Streaming quickly became the go-to for music, with such services accounting for 67% of the industry’s total value in 2022, according to the World Economic Forum.
Around this time, live streaming also started to emerge.
While many social media networks have since absorbed this into their broader platforms, the most prominent of these to be based entirely around this concept was video-game platform Twitch.
Launched in 2011 by entrepreneur Justin Kan, Twitch ended up being acquired three years later by Amazon for almost $1 billion.
The platform, which eventually branched out to streaming music and other types of content, brought about a new way of streaming whereby individuals and broadcasters could communicate with each other in real time.
This ability to watch live entertainment and communicate with like-minded people further expanded streaming’s appeal.
2020s: Streaming is here to stay
The continued growth of streaming has not only changed the way we consume media, but also how it’s produced.
Many of the streaming services mentioned in this article now invest heavily in original content.
Since 2013, for example, Netflix has produced more than 1,500 original titles. Spotify, meanwhile, spent $200 million on a deal to have exclusive rights to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
There is certainly a case for subscription fatigue, which is perhaps an inevitable consequence of so many services adopting a similar model to one another.
But with 99% of US families having at least one subscription to a streaming service, and with a total industry value of more than $500bn, it’s undoubtedly here to stay.
The relationship between streaming and advertising
Most streaming platforms operate on a subscription basis, which means they rely on repeat custom. This shift has moved the entertainment industry’s focus from ownership to access.
In theory, by providing more access to people, you bring them into your ecosystem. And, from there, a company can begin to understand how to make a profit – hence the success of the freemium model.
A key aspect of the freemium model is the role of advertisers who embed themselves into the streaming service.
Most established streaming services offer tiered subscriptions, including an ad-free tier (YouTube Premium, for example), which generates an additional form of income for the service.
The streaming service can offset the cost of providing content to this broader audience by running ads for those who don’t take up the subscription.
Furthermore, streaming services can use user data to show more relevant ads. This means both free and paid users might see ads that match their interests, viewing habits, and browsing history.
For advertisers, this has created another channel to connect with potential customers and target them using data that previously wouldn’t have been available via broadcast TV.
Where do we go from here?
As technology moves on, we should expect a broader range of streaming services to emerge, offering specialized content catering to niche audiences.
As AI tools develop, streaming will likely become even more sophisticated and personalized, offering a more tailored user experience.
Perhaps the most intriguing question we should ask ourselves is: We stream music and videos. So why not images?
While the JPEG format has been the standard for online images for decades, it’s starting to show its age.
While widely adopted, issues around copyright and image manipulation continue to arise across various industries.
Image streaming can offer an alternative that protects against both. Unlike conventional images, streamed images cannot be downloaded or copied, and all activity can be tracked – much like with streamed videos and music.
Furthermore, since images are not stored on the user’s device, streaming also frees up valuable storage space on any given website.
Final thoughts
Streaming has already won the world over for its ability to deliver choice and convenience.
But the technology is still relatively young – and as artificial intelligence becomes more prominent, streaming will need to adapt to a growing set of demands.
With conversations around AI-related image theft and tools capable of creating songs in the style of a particular artist still being had, streaming’s role in safeguarding intellectual property is now being increasingly valued.
This will no doubt evolve as tools to ensure content authenticity themselves develop, an issue that has started to be taken more seriously by the most dominant tech companies over the past few years.
Where things go from here isn’t entirely certain. However, with technological progress, changing consumer behaviors, the potential for new regulatory measures, and the evolution of content itself to contend with, among other factors, the streaming services of the future are likely to be radically different from what we know today.
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