revealed through its 2015 earnings report that streaming services were responsible for 34.3 percent of the year's total music industry's revenue, growing 29 percent from the previous year and becoming the largest source of income, pulling in around $2.4 billion. US streaming revenue grew 57 percent to $1.6 billion in the first half of 2016 and accounted for almost half of industry sales. Streaming wars The term streaming wars was coined to discuss the new era (starting in 2019) of competition between video streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+, and Peacock. Competition among online platforms has forced them to find ways to differentiate themselves. One key way they have done this is by offering exclusive content, often self-produced and created specifically for a market. This approach to streaming competition can have disadvantages for consumers and the industry as a whole. Once content is made available online, the corresponding piracy searches decrease. Competition or legal availability across multiple platforms effectively deters online piracy, and more exclusivity does not necessarily translate into higher average investment in content because investment decisions are also dependent on the level and type of competition in online markets. This competition was increased during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic as more people stayed home and watched TV. "The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a seismic shift in the film & TV industry in terms of how films are made, distributed and screened. Many industries have been hit by the economic affect of the pandemic"(Totaro Donato). In August 2022, a CNN headline declared "The streaming wars are over" as pandemic-era restrictions had largely ended and audience growth had stalled. This lead services to focus on profit over market share by cutting production budgets, cracking down on password sharing, and introducing ad-supported tiers. A The Verge article in December 2022 echoed this, declaring an end to the "golden age of the streaming wars". Use by the general public Advances in computer networking, combined with powerful home computers and operating systems made streaming media affordable and easy for the public. Stand-alone Internet radio devices emerged to offer listeners a non-technical option for listening to audio streams. These audio streaming services became increasingly popular; streaming music reached 118.1 billion streams in 2013. In general, multimedia content is data intensive, so media storage and transmission costs are still significant. Media is