Software Is Eating Oil & Gas

Music is incredible in being able to have so many sounds, emotions, instruments, beats, genres, and people listen to all different types every day. Music is universal for a reason. It connects with us, because music is a form of expression.

I want to discuss digital disruption and why software is eating the world, and I’ll start with music because everyone has an experience with music.

Software Is Eating Music

The music industry is no stranger to disruption, whether it’s new genres, new geographies, or new technologies. The last 20 years have seen massive shifts because of digital disruption — in 1999, 100% of revenues were physical (cassettes, CDs) and in 2017, they were 30%.

The impacts of three key milestones can be seen in the chart below.

• The decline since 1999 (Napster & free music downloads)
• The start of digital music in 2004 (Apple iTunes & legal music downloads)
• The prominence of streaming in 2014 (the company Spotify went public in 2018)

Software Is Eating the World

Software completely changed the game in music, and it’s changing the game in all industries — including Oil & Gas.

It’s part of a global phenomenon that is famously written as Software Is Eating the World by Marc Andreesen, who is known as one of the founding fathers of the Internet for his role in developing web browsers (Mosiac, Netscape and Mozilla) and continues to influence the world as a top Silicon Valley investor (he was a very early investor in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Skype & more).

The key takeaway is that some industries have already been massively disrupted by software, as we’ve seen in music, social networks, photography, communications. Still many others are right on the cusp, like automotive, healthcare, materials and energy (including Oil & Gas).

Wake-Up Call

This is a wake-up call for industries on the cusp of disruption. We hear about Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Blockchain, Virtual and Augmented Reality and all the different buzzwords. The buzz comes and goes as part of the technology hype cycle, but the implications don’t change.

Software is here, and it’s eating the world. Embrace digital disruption, and don’t be left behind like records, CDs and all other physical music in today’s digital age.

Embracing Digital Change in Oil & Gas

Unsist provides data solutions to Oil & Gas companies to optimize high CapEx operations. Our Energy Data Platform enables benchmarking and Unsist Computing enables optimization.

Want to learn more?

• Check out www.unsist.com or contact us at hello@unsist.com.
• Check out this report by Accenture on Digital Initiatives in the Oil & Gas Industry, which outlines over a trillion dollars in savings opportunity for the industry