
Apple Music Overtakes Spotify in U.S. Subscribers - daegloe
https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-music-overtakes-spotify-in-u-s-subscribers-11554475924
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guelo
I agree with Elizabeth Warren that Apple should not be allowed to do this.
They create the marketplace and then compete in it giving themselves
advantages that they deny other companies.

~~~
ghaff
I might buy an argument if full Apple Music were bundled into the purchase
price of an iPhone or Apple blocked Spotify but that's not the case here. You
still need to buy a subscription and downloading a Spotify app is just a few
clicks away.

~~~
mortenjorck
I’d agree with you if it weren’t for the fact that Apple blocks Spotify from
offering its own subscription link in the app. By forcing businesses on the
App Store to choose between Apple’s in-app purchase system for a 30% cut and
using an external payment processor that they are forbidden from linking to
(or even referencing!) in the app, Apple retains a substantial, anti-
competitive advantage over anyone operating on its platform.

~~~
prklmn
I think this is similar to grocery store brands. Do you think that grocery
stores should not be allowed to charge name brands for shelf space because
they are competing against store owned private label brands?

~~~
belltaco
I regularly shop at three different grocery chain stores. It's way easier for
customers to switch between them compared to being locked into the Apple app
store.

~~~
millstone
Nobody is being forced to subscribe to Spotify through the App Store. It's
very easy to visit spotify.com and subscribe to Spotify Premium.

~~~
bduerst
>Nobody is being forced to use _Internet Explorer_ through _Windows_. It's
very easy to visit _Netscape.com_ and download _Netscape Navigator_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

~~~
microtherion
At a time when Windows had something like a 90% desktop OS market share. iOS
never had more than 30% mobile market share.

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xbmcuser
100% of iPhone users use iOS doesn't matter what the total smartphone use
percentage is. It was the same when railway Barron's started capturing the
other markets when they owned the railways each railway barron owned their own
track and people had alternate routes

~~~
microtherion
And 100% of Spotify customers use Spotify. Should artists therefore be able to
dictate their own terms to Spotify?

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mjsweet
I was happily on Spotify for years and then we had kids. With no explicit
filtering and repeated requests from many users (look up forums) to filter
falling on deaf ears I had no choice but to move to iTunes. I just can’t have
explicit language and lyrics blaring around the house with toddlers. It makes
me sad because I loved the UX and selection in Spotify, as well as controlling
playback from any device. Why Apple won’t allow you to control playback from
anywhere is beyond me.

~~~
lostmyoldone
This is an honest question. I'm from Sweden, have kids, but I have such a hard
time understanding the issue with explicit language filters in this context.

Why are the filters so important? What is the 'use case'?

I'm also not surprised it's hard to get a Swedish founded company to introduce
explicit filters. At least to me and my peers, the explicit words thing -
beeps and all - is one of the most mystifying parts of US culture, especially
since the same words also are so prominent in a lot of popular culture. So
whatever culture you're from, getting a "Swedish" company to understand, and
implement explicit filters is going to be an uphill battle because of this.

Locally, they would probably also be considered old and stodgy if they did it,
not unlikely it cost them quite a few of the younger users.

~~~
nindalf
I was with you until the last bit. I'm a young(ish) Spotify user and it
wouldn't make a difference to me whether they implemented this or not. If
someone people want a filter, let them use it. Doesn't affect me.

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whalesalad
This is very surprising. The integration on iOS is unmatched (duh) but
everything about Spotify is better.

~~~
calewis
I agree but wonder if this is a sign of music streaming becoming a utility? Do
most users care about sophisticated discovery and recommendation engines? Or
do they just want billboard 100 hits?

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malvosenior
I've actually found Apple Music and Spotify to have around the same quality
recommendations. Both have a Discover Weekly feature, both will let you create
"stations" from a song or artist. Neither are great or innovative in any way
but they sort of get the job done. The recommendations are miles ahead of
YouTube but that's not saying much.

~~~
ymolodtsov
Apple Music is mostly human-curated, Spotify is programmatic. That’s why I
prefer thr latter.

~~~
malvosenior
That's incorrect. Apple Music have a lot of programmatic recommendations. New
Music Mix is programmatic. As is clicking on any song and creation a station
from it.

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giancarlostoro
I used to pay for Spotify, it was lame, didn't have all the music I wanted,
then I got Google Play All Music Access, I have not needed anything else
since. I assume Apple Music is similar enough. I've not had to pirate music in
half a decade because it just works, and I can cache songs to my device too.

I can see why Apple would dominate for iPhone / Apple users though.

~~~
antirez
I can't honestly, apple music like many apple services is impossible to use
outside their ecosystem, while play music (which I use) I can use in my iPad
and my Google pixel for instance. Apple is able to dominate the US market in
ways very hard for me to understand, another example is iMessage.

~~~
endorphone
The iMessage domination is automatic -- if you message from an Apple device to
a phone number that happens to be an Apple device (which the sender might be
oblivious to), it's an iMessage. People aren't subscribing to iMessage, or
intentionally choosing it, the thing is just the default in that case.

Apple Music heavily pushed, on the device, a 3 month free trial, and it's
about time that most of those 3 month trials expire. I imagine the number will
drop substantially after.

~~~
Steko
> it's about time that most of those 3 month trials expire. I imagine the
> number will drop substantially after.

Apple's been heavily pushing the service with the same 3 month trial for
several years and has seen huge growth over the whole period. There's no big
correction that's waiting to hit.

~~~
endorphone
Despite numerous Apple devices I'd never gotten so forceful a push for Apple
Music as I did early this year, and indeed Apple has started using tactics
that were verboten before, such as push notifications. Of course there is
"huge growth", there is a billion devices and they push it with the platform.
I do think there are going to be enough people that just don't find it good
enough.

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WisNorCan
I am one of the people contributing to this trend. I tried Spotify first and
switched to Apple Music. The family plan and my Sonos speakers just didn’t
work on Spotify. Maybe they fixed, but I have no reason to check.

Just works is such a huge selling point for most consumers.

~~~
anbop
Yes, but “just works” is because Apple allows itself preferential Siri
integration, which would be an antitrust case if the Justice Department was
worth a shit.

~~~
threeseed
It's not about the DOJ.

You just have a tenuous grasp on when/where antitrust can be applied.

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jpincheira
Wow, very interesting. Never actually thought Apple would win the US music
subscription market.

I am though a user myself of Apple Music, and the app I must say, on iOS, is
way better, and the no. 1 reason I switched from Spotify when Apple Music
launched.

~~~
matwood
I switched from GPM when AM launched. GPM was fine, but like many things
google it had little direction. Is it even going to stay around or will
youtube music be the new thing? Dunno.

AM works fine and gives recommendations that I like. I also rarely run into
music that's not on AM like I used to do on Spotify.

AM can also be purchased for the year for $99. Combine that with a $100 iTunes
gift card that can often be found for $85 or even $80 (often around Christmas
time), and unlimited music for the year becomes rather inexpensive.

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jammygit
I used to have a spotify subscription, but it felt weird to have nothing at
the end of 6 months. I cancelled it and just started buying music regularly. I
spend a lot less and I actually 'own' (ish) a decent sized library now.

~~~
CDSlice
Where are you buying your music from? The iTunes store gives you DRM free
files so you do truly own them.

~~~
lmedinas
Actually nowadays you can find really cheap CDs in Amazon (even more than
iTunes)and of course rip it to FLAC or Mp3.

Or when i can not find the CD in Amazon i usually get from 7digital.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
For me the big reason I went with Apple Music is CarPlay. It it so nice to
just push a button on the steering wheel and say “Hey Siri play <Song|Album>
by <Artist>“

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ranjeetbhatia
I was on Spotify and when apple music came did a quick check with 10 regional
language songs from one state in India. Apple music had all 10 and Spotify
missed 6-7 of those. Pretty unscientific but good enough for me to move to
Apple Music.

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rvooda
Yup. My reason exactly for moving to Apple Music. Its collection is huge;
Spotify did not target other markets properly (In my dumb opinion)

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glerk
For someone already invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Music makes the
most sense because of the seamless integration. I don’t see the appeal of
competitors given the similar pricing and features.

~~~
justwalt
No Apple Music on Linux is one for me.

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holowire
It's interesting to consider how commodified music streaming has become. I'd
be interested to see how many people actually have any kind of loyalty to one
platform over the other, or if their choice is more reflective of which one
fulfills one or two preferential details better in this relative moment.

Thinking about my personal choice, I choose Spotify over apple music because I
like the library interface better. I also used Apple Music exclusively from
launch until two years ago because I previously had a large local library of
my own through iTunes. Both are great services, but once I transitioned into a
fully streamed library, Spotfiy became more appealing to me for smaller and
smaller reasons. My impression is that with the ubiquity of streaming and
general consistency of quality, preference largely becomes a product of what
platform is the most readily available.

While I am fairly staunch in my preference for Spotify at the moment, but I am
not sympathetic to their position against Apple's terms. I fully acknowledge
that not all apps that operate in Apple's ecosystem are treated totally
equally, but remember, equality and fairness are not the same thing. It is
their ecosystem after all and it is in their best interest to be selective in
how they maintain it. So while it Spotify may not be treated equally, it is my
opinion that they are treated fairly within Apple's walled garden.

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zaro
Well I guess Spotify created this site
[https://timetoplayfair.com/](https://timetoplayfair.com/) for a reason.

~~~
sbuk
Yes. Marketing.

~~~
zaro
Of course, but I think most of the things they state about Apple playing dirty
sound true.

~~~
sbuk
That’s a good example of confirmation bias.

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mlacks
If they created the market, why is this a problem? In my head, it’s their
market, so they can decide what to allow and provide, the same way Kirkland
does at Costco. They’re not even a majority, let alone a monopoly. It’s anti
competitive, but I don’t understand the need for outside intervention.

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dano
Streaming music services will get dominated by the companies that have
ancillary product revenues not directly related to music. Apple, Google,
Microsoft, and Amazon will be the survivors in this race to the bottom as it
makes little difference whether their music services are highly profitable or
not. Before arguing with me about this, think about how little actual profit
exists in Pandora and Spotify and how hard it would be to change that
equation. It isn't that the big guys are predatory (maybe they are) it is that
they make money selling something other than music, but music is a necessary
part of making their other products complete.

Making a profit from selling music in a service is a very tough business.

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40acres
Apple's branding power can really provide solid leverage as they bolster
services. I'm a Spotify subscriber but when Apple Music came out I considered
getting an iPhone for the first time that year, ultimately I did not get an
iPhone but I'm sure millions of users converted to be more integrated with the
Apple environment.

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nojvek
I still very much like Spotify. They have a superior product. I think Apple
with it’s billions could probably fund a bigger library but I subscribed to
Apple Music for 90 days and I didn’t have a great experience.

If I was Spotify, I would continue investing to make the best music
subscription product hands down.

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CedarMills
I switched between Apple Music and Spotify. I transferred my playlists using
SongShift. After some time, I personally enjoy Spotify more primarily due to
social aspect + music discovery and ended up cancelling my Apple Music
subscription after several months.

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lskopwol
Is there any automated playlist converter to move from Spotify to Apple Music
??

~~~
CedarMills
Yes. I did this recently. I used SongShift
([https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songshift/id1097974566](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/songshift/id1097974566)).

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ksec
It is sad to see how Apple has turned form being better but not getting the
MarketShares in the old days ( Mac ), to Now getting MarketShare but not
having the better product ( Apple Music vs Spotify )

And in the new evidence of DHH's tweets and finding about MacBook Keyboard
being much much worst than we thought. I am losing faith in Tim Cook's Apple.

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93s6oz
Can you use Apple Music for free like you can do with Spotify?

~~~
larrik
I don't think you can, and worse, iTunes used to have free radio stations that
were pretty decent, but are now locked behind the Apple Music paywall.

Radio is an area that Spotify falls flat on its face. If I want to listen to
random holiday music, for instance, Spotify just sucks.

~~~
votepaunchy
How is it worse that with Apple Music artists are paid significantly more? And
said artists are not being sued by Apple.

~~~
larrik
I don't really see the connection between my comment and yours...

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TheMagicHorsey
Apple abuses its position as platform gatekeeper to get its own products in
front of its customers.

Anyone who has used both products knows Spotify is objectively better in terms
of music discovery and the social aspects of music. Not to mention, spotify
works everywhere. Apple music only works on iOS and MacOS.

~~~
pier25
Apple Music works on Android too:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.andr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.android.music)

~~~
nikofeyn
saying it works on android is a bit generous. haha. i was paying for it and
using it, but it was a terrible experience. apple music on android often
couldn't even play music downloaded unless it had a screaming internet
connection. i have no idea what the download feature was even for. and there
were countless bugs and usability issues. maybe it's better now, but it was
terrible around a year or two ago.

