Early last semester, my online social stream began to inform me of more than when my friends were sitting at Starbucks or eating ramen. Thanks to a partnership between Facebook and Spotify, I now know what my friends listen to when they press play.

Spotify allows instant sharing

Social integration provided the logical next step for the music industry; Spotify capitalized on it. Far more sophisticated than the days of Napster, the new kid on the block seamlessly connects with Facebook and other social media profiles. What’s the incentive there? If you want to show off your inner music aficionado, Spotify auto-publishes every song you listen to for your friends to see.

Gone are the days of burning discs or mixing tapes. Now, a few clicks and you have a whole playlist to share with your friends. And unlike with Sharpie-scribbled CDs, artists are compensated every time their song is played.

Music industry struggles to stay afloat

This upgrade may prove necessary to bail out a drowning industry. Since the advent of the Internet, the music industry has been burdened with the task of discovering how to monetize file sharing. Lawsuits shut down Napster; pay-for-service companies, such as Rhapsody, arose from the ashes.

Then, Purevolume, YouTube and Myspace revolutionized the indie artist. No longer were starving artists confined to hustling burned discs on street corners, or tucking them between the sleeves in record stores, hoping to be discovered. They could now be discovered from home. It worked for the likes of Panic! at the Disco, Lights, Pomplamoose and even Justin Bieber.

However, every revolution meets an ultimatum: Change everything, or get co-opted or consumed by the status quo. Unsurprisingly, major recording labels monopolized and monetized these media and — equally unsurprisingly — Myspace and Purevolume are irrelevant to nearly any conversation regarding the state of the music industry today, irrelevant because they were abandoned by the fans who used them. Free access to full songs was replaced with a myriad of banner ads and 30-second song clips. Listeners moved on.

Keeping up with change

With its six-month trial period now coming to a close, Spotify is quite possibly on its way down the trail of Napster and Myspace. The company — which offered unlimited free access for its maiden voyage in return for music-interrupting ads — will now put usage caps on non-paying users.

Currently, more than 3 million subscribers pay for Spotify, reports the Financial Times. Likely, this success will remain sustainable for a time. That is, until another service offers free access to music. Recording artist and renowned cellist Zoe Keating recently blogged about this tension.

“The only constant in this business is change, so I seriously doubt that Spotify is or will be the only music discovery app that people use,” she wrote.

And here’s my fear: Spotify is just another bandage on a sinking ship. The early days of social media were on to something. Direct artist-to-fan distribution is a game changer, and thanks to social integration, it’s a viable one.

Directly interacting with fans

Sure, Panic!, Lights and certainly the Biebs each maintain exponentially greater notoriety because of corporate middlemen. But remember they first got our attention through hard work as independent artists. How does that mete out for decidedly independent artists? Not bad. Just ask Christianity Today’s 2011 Album of the Year recipient Josh Garrels, who gave away his album during what he dubbed the year of jubilee. Or ask The Civil Wars, an indie act who gave away their first EP, and saw their debut album rise to number 12 on the Billboard 200.

Both artists owe thanks to another Christian music trailblazer. In 2007, Derek Webb helped pioneer a website that allows artists to share music with their fans. Noisetrade.com hosts artists’ free music, provides seamless integration with major social media platforms, and even offers a place to “tip” the artist, allowing a name-your-price feature reminiscent of Radiohead’s 2007 “In Rainbows” release.

For those who doubt this artist-to-fan model is sustainable, Webb offers this insight into the hushed rooms of recording artists and executives. “I make more money giving records away on @noisetrade … than selling that same record on iTunes (let alone Spotify),” Webb tweeted back in November.

Bieber is the anomaly. While Spotify represents another brave step forward, its bucket will prove too small to bring the industry back afloat. If savvy consumers continually reject subjection to ads and subscription services, we will see a revolution in the music industry. As more quality artists join the likes of Garrels and The Civil Wars and realize the viability of interacting directly with fans, we just might find a plug to stop this ship from sinking.