Rethinking Streaming: Dan Mac’s Vision for Australian Music

For most fans, Art vs Science conjure up memories of sweaty crowds, sing-along choruses, and a band whose eccentric energy defined a slice of the Australian soundtrack. But when Dan Mac joined us on the Homebrewed Podcast, the conversation turned to the very future of Australian music itself.

Dan is blunt about the current state of things. “It’s broken for most artists,” he told us. “You can have a million streams and still be scraping by.”

He’s not wrong. A recent industry report showed that while the Australian music sector generated $8.78 billion in revenue last year, the median income for an artist was just $14,700. In other words, half of the country’s working musicians earned less than a part-time wage from their craft.

For Dan, the solution begins with thinking differently — and thinking big.

Collective Power

Instead of leaving artists to fend for themselves, Dan imagines a collective bargaining model inspired by Australia’s healthcare system.

“It’s like the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme,” he explained.

“Every Australian musician could opt in … and instead of us all trying to negotiate tiny individual deals, streaming services would have to negotiate with one national bod.

"Taylor Swift can negotiate her own rate because she’s Taylor Swift. But no single Australian act has that power. Together, though, we do.”

Australians are producing music the world wants, but the system doesn’t reward them fairly here at home.

A Streaming Service of Our Own

Collective bargaining is only part of the vision. Dan also believes Australia needs its own cultural infrastructure: a national streaming service, built for and by Australians.

“What if the Triple J app became a free, government-backed streaming service?” he asked. “It would be like Medicare or the ABC — but for music.

"We’d still have Spotify and Apple for everything else, but there’d be one place you know will always support Australian artists, new and old.”

It’s an idea that cuts against the grain of global algorithms, which are built to push the biggest names. In the past two decades, the presence of Australian acts in the ARIA Top 100 has plummeted from around 16% in 2000 to just 2.5% in 2023.

Dan believes a dedicated platform could help redress that decline, not by excluding global music, but by giving Australian voices a guaranteed space.

Another important aspect of this plan is having human-curated playlists, allowing fans a chance to hear more from their favourite niche artists. Just imagine that you're a fan of Australian heavy metal music - you're never going to get a dedicated playlist on the streaming giants to showcase that talent. But, on an Australian-owned streaming service with human curation, that same fan into the heavy metal scene can discover gems from all over the Country.

Dan Mac imagines a service that’s part discovery, part archive, and part cultural mission — one that not only champions emerging talent but also preserves the country’s musical history for future generations.

Beyond Survival

These ideas aren’t without hurdles: funding, licensing, changing listener habits, etc. But Dan insists the conversation is worth having, especially after the pandemic revealed just how fragile the live sector is. In 2020, attendance at live music events collapsed by more than 67%, wiping out an estimated $1.4 billion in revenue.

For many artists, that loss hasn’t been fully recovered, and streaming income alone can’t replace it.

“It’s not enough to just say ‘support local,’” he told us. “We need structural changes that make Australian music viable long-term. Otherwise, we risk losing it.”

That urgency resonates. Nearly half of artists’ income currently comes from live shows — a fragile model in a country as vast as Australia, where touring is expensive and unpredictable. The rest come from royalties, merchandise, sync, and grants.

Dan’s vision may sound idealistic, but it’s grounded in the numbers. The Australian industry is valuable. It contributes billions to the economy. But the people who make the music — the very heart of it — too often scrape by.

A Future Worth Fighting For

What’s refreshing about talking to Dan is that his ideas don’t come from cynicism, but from belief. Belief that things can change. Belief that Australian music can be more than a cultural export — that it can be nurtured and valued here, too.

“The point isn’t whether it happens exactly the way I describe,” he told the Homebrewed Podcast. “The point is to imagine a future where Australian music isn’t just surviving, but thriving. That means being bold.”

The statistics make his case. The vision gives it shape. And the question it leaves us with is one that can’t be ignored: Do we want a future where Australian music thrives on its own terms, or one where it fades into the background noise of global playlists?

Listen to the full interview with Dan Mac on the Homebrewed Podcast here.

Share your thoughts with us on Instagram @homebrewedmedia and tell us: should Australia build a “PBS for music” — or even its own national streaming service?