The RIAA has announced that they will be counting streams as part of certifying albums and singles Gold or Platinum:
After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors – including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program – and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues, the RIAA set the new Album Award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. Also effective today, RIAA’s Digital Single Award ratio will be updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect streaming’s enormous growth in the two plus years since that ratio was set.
I think this move was inevitable. There’s a good chance that in our lifetime album “sales” will be rendered irrelevant. The full press release can be found below.