Turns Out the Whole World Wants to Tell Supersized Streaming to Shove It

Melanie Bainbridge

4 minute read

So, remember how I mentioned The Pack could work internationally? Well, I've been crunching some numbers (yes, I know, I'm fun at parties), and it turns out I might have been thinking too small. Way too small.

Here's a stat that should make Daniel Ek choke on his morning kombucha: conservative projections suggest The Pack's model could attract tens of millions of users globally. We're not talking about some cute little Australian experiment that makes people go "aww, Aussies are so cute." We're talking about a genuine threat to the Silicon Valley music extraction racket.

Brazil alone could bring in 44 million users. France? 18 million. Canada? 10 million. Each expansion basically proves that people everywhere are absolutely fed up with having their local music scenes treated like resource extraction sites by tech bros who think culture is just another commodity to be mined for shareholder value.

Welcome to the international cooperative revolution, where local music scenes finally get to tell Silicon Valley exactly where they can stick their algorithms.

You know what's hilarious? Every country faces the exact same problem. French artists getting buried under English-language content that the algorithm knows will generate more ad revenue. Brazilian musicians competing with American chart-toppers that have unlimited marketing budgets. Canadian Indigenous artists getting pushed aside by whatever's trending globally this week. Indonesian artists watching their local languages disappear from platforms designed primarily for English speakers.

It's like Silicon Valley looked at the world and said, "You know what this needs? Complete cultural homogenisation in service of our advertising revenue!"

But here's where it gets interesting. Let's talk about the math that should make every tech Exec very, very nervous.

France could attract 18 million users paying €10/month. That's €2.16 billion annually flowing to French artists instead of California shareholders. Brazil might hit 44 million users at R$30/month - that's R$15.8 billion staying in Brazil instead of funding another tech billionaire's space hobby. Canada could reach 10 million users at C$12/month, creating C$1.44 billion in annual revenue for actual Canadian artists. Indonesia presents 24 million potential users at $8/month, generating $2.3 billion annually for local musicians.

Even if we only capture 10-20% of these projections, we're talking about hundreds of millions annually flowing to artists instead of shareholders. Multiply that across dozens of countries, and suddenly you're looking at a genuine existential threat to the entire streaming monopoly (#sorrynotsorry).

France is actually the perfect test case because they're already suspicious of American (and weirdly Swedish) tech dominance (bless them), they have radio quotas for French-language content, and they understand cooperative business models. Plus, 73% of French listeners already use streaming platforms, so we're not starting from scratch.

A French Pack could require 70% French-language content, with payments going directly to French artists who are actually creating music for French audiences. It's cultural sovereignty through technology instead of cultural colonialism disguised as "global connectivity."

Brazil is even more exciting because Brazilians overwhelmingly prefer Portuguese-language content despite international stuff being available. They have 110 million streaming users, they love their local music, and they have a history of telling foreign corporations to take a hike when they try to dominate Brazilian markets.

Canada? They already have CanCon requirements, government funding for Indigenous and French-Canadian content, and a deep suspicion of American cultural imperialism (I’d guess it’s even deeper now). Plus, they understand cooperatives. The Pack model basically aligns with everything Canada claims to want - they just need to actually fund it instead of just talking about it.

And Southeast Asia? Indonesia has 274 million people, 45% streaming adoption, multiple local languages that need platforms designed for their communities, and a government that's increasingly interested in digital sovereignty. The Philippines has 110 million people who prefer local artists over international hits despite consuming English-language content.

The potential for The Pack’s international expansion: unlike corporate platforms that extract value from every market while contributing nothing to local culture, the cooperative model creates genuine value exchange. Each expansion shares the technology, builds networks for artist collaboration, transfers cultural policy expertise, and creates solidarity between communities.

Australia becomes an exporter of cooperative technology and cultural sovereignty expertise instead of just raw materials (and in a mining export economy, that’s epic). We actually get to lead global innovation in democratic digital infrastructure.

The real kicker? This represents algorithmic decolonisation. When local communities control their cultural algorithms, you get cultural self-determination instead of behavioural manipulation. Currently, streaming platforms extract billions from international markets while returning minimal value to local creators. The Pack reverses this: French Pack users would support French artists directly, Brazilian subscribers would fund Brazilian musicians, Canadian co-operators would invest in Canadian culture. Countries can reclaim digital sovereignty without building everything from scratch - they can adapt proven cooperative models to their cultural contexts while maintaining democratic control.

The beautiful part? As The Pack expands internationally, it creates a global network of cooperatives sharing resources while maintaining local control. Technology costs get spread across multiple markets, artists can collaborate across platforms based on actual interest instead of marketing budgets, successful strategies get shared between cooperatives, and we build a genuine solidarity economy.

Unlike corporate platforms that create walled gardens to trap users, cooperative platforms can enable genuine interoperability. French artists become discoverable on Australian platforms based on musical compatibility, not marketing budgets. International tours become possible through data sharing based on actual fan engagement instead of corporate guesswork.

From globalised streaming’s skewed perspective, cooperative international expansion is a nightmare. Revenue they've been extracting from captured international markets starts staying local. Algorithm control shifts from corporate boardrooms to community governance. User data stays in community hands instead of corporate surveillance systems. And here's the really scary part: when communities prove they can own and operate digital infrastructure successfully, the monopoly power of tech platforms becomes vulnerable across all sectors. When communities demonstrate that alternative economics work better than corporate extraction, the entire model of platform capitalism is open to challenge.

Each Pack expansion becomes a node in global cultural resistance to digital colonialism. Communities control their cultural infrastructure, artists build sustainable careers from local audiences, culture gets preserved instead of homogenised, and technology serves users instead of exploiting them.

The choice is clear: Will communities control their cultural technology, or will they keep surrendering it to corporate extraction that treats culture as a resource to be mined?

The revolution starts with music, but it definitely doesn't end there.