Is the internet actually benefiting the music industry?

For some counter-culture genres of music, the digital revolution has been a blessing as well as a curse.

It’s 6pm on a cool January evening in Bethnal Green, east London. On the top floor of a nondescript building, a group of young, mostly male, music producers mill around, playing pool and throwing darts. A lot of them have never met before but interact with familiarity, comfortable because they know each other from time spent online, on platforms like Soundcloud and Twitter.