For nearly twenty years, Qobuz has championed a belief: that music deserves to be listened to in all its richness, discovered with curiosity and appreciated for what it is truly worth. The journey of this independent French company invites us to question our conception of success: must one necessarily appeal to the widest possible audience to create value and establish a foothold in the market?
Editor’s note
Qobuz is a client of La Nouvelle Agence, whose vision, consistency, passion and high musical standards I deeply admire. It is a uniqueness that inspires me far beyond its sector, and one that I wanted to explore in this column.
In summary, in this column:
- Abundance offers us great freedom of choice but guarantees neither the depth of the experience nor the value we attach to it.
- Uniqueness sometimes requires making sacrifices in order to better cultivate what makes us unique.
- Power sometimes lies less in size than in the unique position one manages to occupy.
- Communication can help transform our perceptions of success, provided that the narratives it constructs are grounded in the reality of our actions.
When abundance is no longer enough to enrich our experience
There is a particular pleasure in taking the time to listen. Discovering an album, exploring an artist’s journey, or catching a previously unnoticed emotion in the course of a melody.
Today, millions of tracks fit onto our mobile phones. This abundance offers us extraordinary freedom, in an age where everything pushes us to consume ever more quickly and move on to the next new thing. But having access to everything does not necessarily mean knowing how to appreciate its value.
Since its inception, Qobuz has cultivated a unique vision of the musical experience, where sonic excellence reveals the full richness and emotion of the works, and where artists take centre stage. Complementing this commitment is a human-curated selection that encourages curiosity and opens the door to discovering repertoires that may lie far outside our usual tastes.
The courage not to please everyone
We admire companies that conquer new markets, grow their user base and make their services accessible to as many people as possible. So much so that we have almost come to equate size with power, leaving other forms of success, sometimes just as remarkable, in the shadows.
Qobuz could have adopted a free, ad-supported model. Instead, it has retained an exclusively subscription-based service, prioritised sound quality and maintained the option to purchase albums outright. And in an era where algorithms shape much of our musical discovery, its editorial teams hand-select works and invite users to explore repertoires that are sometimes far removed from popular trends.
These choices do not meet mainstream expectations, but they give the company an instantly recognisable character.
In a culture that values accumulation, making sacrifices can also demonstrate a conviction strong enough to accept setting certain possibilities aside.
Is there still a place for loyalty to a conviction in our economy?
It is easy to profess convictions. Giving them a real place in strategic decisions requires greater consistency, especially when market pressures encourage us to make easier or more profitable choices.
A commitment to quality, respect for craftsmanship or loyalty to a vision only truly come into their own when they have a tangible influence on practices. At Qobuz, this commitment is reflected in the way we showcase works and recognise the work of those who create them.
In March 2025, the company published its average royalty rate paid to rights holders, as confirmed by an independent firm: 18.02 euros per 1,000 plays, paid to record labels and publishers, who then remunerate the artists in accordance with their contracts.
In February 2026, its AI Charter clarified the role reserved for human editorial curation and the mechanisms designed to identify artificially generated musical content.
These decisions demonstrate Qobuz’s commitment to upholding its founding principles in its economic and technological choices.
Consistency has this virtue: it allows a company to grow without losing sight of what is worth preserving. And when a company turns its convictions into a tangible reality, it lends its message a credibility that no promise can replace. Power, therefore, sometimes lies less in size than in the unique position one manages to occupy.
The LNA perspective: what our narratives teach us to admire
We often read that a brand must tell a compelling story to stand out. This is a rather limited view of strategic communication. The example of Qobuz offers a different perspective. Strong communication does not invent a difference. It makes intelligible a difference that already exists in the company’s decisions.
Qobuz could have defined itself by comparison with the streaming giants. It chose instead to highlight the value of what is uniquely its own: its musical culture, its commitment to quality, the attention it pays to artists and the joy of discovery. For companies already communicate through their decisions. Their products, their commitments and the choices they make reveal something of their convictions, long before a campaign puts them into words.
At La Nouvelle Agence, we believe in this kind of communication, which draws its strength from reality and helps to highlight successes that our habitual ways of thinking sometimes overlook. Stories also shape what a society learns to admire.
In an industry dominated by global giants, Qobuz has managed to carve out a prominent position by remaining true to its vision. Controlled growth, a unique value proposition and a path to profitability give full meaning to this alternative way of viewing success. Here, communication takes on an exciting responsibility: to broaden the scope of what we consider desirable, without ever substituting narrative for evidence.
What if success meant staying true to what makes us unique?
