> Find an average (non tech) IOS user, and try to get them to switch to these apps
You do know that Spotify has 600 million users? And that it got those users without practices like pushing its app in phone setup, account setup, settings, home screen, default music app, default music app in carplay etc.?
> As an aside, the source of this complaint being Spotify is interesting. I would love to know from artist who pays better between the two (because I dont think its spottify)
Neither pays artists directly. They pay money to rights holders. Why no one ever questions the rights holders is beyond my comprehension at this point.
> They don’t? This is because of the limitation puts on the App.
Just because there’s some reason for why Apple does not make money from Spotify does not invalidate the fact. Meanwhile, your entire argument depended on a false premise.
> Have they? Spotify was a thing on the desktop way before it was on iPhone.
And Rhapsody was on desktop way before Spotify. There’s a reason it didn’t take off.
> It’s not free, quite the opposite. It comes with a steep fee when you sell on their platform.
What steep fee? The one that the biggest music streaming company does not pay? How can a fee be both required and uncollected?
> I like Apple Music because it integrates well with the Apple line.
Is there a need to integrate with anything? All I need is to play music. Spotify is as integrated into macOS and iOS as Apple Music.
> More importantly though it is one of the highest paying per stream to artists [1]. Streaming needs to be much more lucrative for artists and consumer choice helps that.
Too bad they are shooting themselves in the foot by neglecting user experience.
> Spotify isn’t using their market dominance in streaming to give artist a pittance?
What evidence do you have back this up? There’s every suggestion that Spotify are struggling to defend themselves against artists who demand bigger payments.
Additionally there’s every suggestion that Apple Music now have a larger portion of the market than Spotify, and if it hasn’t happened yet, it will soon.
All of that is ignoring other competitors like Google Music (or YouTube, wherever they’re calling it today) and Amazon Music.
Simply put, your assertion fails on multiple fronts.
> Spotify has over 25% paid users (and is losing money paying out 70% of revenues).
Isn't that the big thing here? Apple is coming into a market where the established players are losing money and throwing around all their surplus cash from their hardware business to establish their own music service. Is this good for the artists in the short run? Maybe. Is it good for artists in the long run, if Apple manages to put all the other streaming services out of business? I'm not sure it is.
> Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters.
Uh, I seem to recall Apple being forced to reverse some brazenly greedy policies for their music service when a high-profile artist called them out and withheld content in protest. For Apple to characterize itself as a champion of exploited artists is pretty disingenuous.
> I feel like the only person on the planet who finds spotify annoying and its library shallow.
I've run into this as well, Apple Music seems to have much wider coverage than Spotify, even when it comes to fairly mainstream 'indie' labels. Both services have big holes in their catalogs, though, and sometimes when deep diving into particular artists or labels, I find YouTube more likely to have rarer albums and such (usually recorded from vinyl by some kind soul).
> There are plenty of non-apple speakers that come with Spotify trials.
Spotify has to pay for these and has to compete for this with other music streaming companies.
Also, comparison with smart speakers is disingenuous. There are a billion iPhone users itself. No non big tech company smart speaker comes even close.
> Spotify is still dominating music streaming
Because of nailing the product early on and being world class in playlists and music recommendations. Even if Apple music comes 80% close, just by holding distribution advantage, they will capture that market.
> Is the implication that they should operate differently or be held to a different standard than Spotify?
Currently this is the case. Apple Music is held to a different set of rules and standards than Spotify.
When Apple Music wants to collect their customer's money from within the Apple Music app, they can do this practically for free - they don't need to forfit 30% of their revenue of that sale to another party.
When Spotify wants to collect their customer's money from within the Spotify app, they cannot without having to forfit 30% of their revenue.
Apple Music gets to play by different rules and is not held to the same standard as everyone alse on the App Store.
> I was thinking about switching over to Apple Music for a bit to see if I like the whole user experience a bit more even if apple music on its own is inferior.
I’m not sure what part of the service you consider ‘inferior’ to Spotify (I personally dislike Spotify’s UI/UX), but ? Music’s iOS integration is really great. I can also use it in my android devices and Sonos stuff too.
I also find Music’s professionally-curated playlists (and radio stations now that there are a variety) to be far superior to any algorithm I’ve come across for music discovery.
> Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters.
OP:
> Apple saying that it's "trying to make money of others' work" while ignoring that the App Store is doing exactly that on an unprecedented scale by restricting choice is truly ironic.
This is a bit of a ridiculous claim. From another perspective, an iPhone is just another way to access your favorite apps and content. Taken to more of an extreme, imagine Comcast or T-Mobile claiming that they provide users to Spotify... Apple is easily just a middle man here but they make themselves sound like the entity that owns the users and plugs them into apps. It's not like people buy iPhones just because they're shiny pieces of aluminum and glass, and using apps is secondary to that.
>Spotify is a perfect example of a tech company that gives absolutely no fucks for the preferences of their paying customers.
I think that is a larger problem across the industry. And here is an unpopular opinion especially on HN. Tech is dominating every field. Tech is dictating trends. And Tech company are making consumer products but doesn't understand consumers. It is exactly the same on Apple Music at launch when they decide to not include a Loop button because it was all about the "Next Song".
I felt Spotify, or arguably Apple has made the business case for Streaming Music ( or not since they dont make much money ). But in terms of product or UX they are not any better.
Having said that I still think Spotify is far better than Apple Music. And Shuffle works for long playlist and not on Album so I am perfectly fine with the decision.
> with the whole business model. Why can't we have nice things anymore?
Because to have music you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have lyrics you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have videos you have to get a license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because to have your app working on some surfaces (think desktop vs phone vs speakers vs TVs vs cars vs...) you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Because if you want to synchronize or show together some, or all, of the audio/video/lyrics/subtitles/etc. you have to get a different license from rights holders, and pay for it.
Disclaimer: I work at Spotify, and it annoys me to no end that these questions are never directed at the people who actually demand all this money: the rights holders.
>And non Apple fanboys would never go to Apple music,
I did. Apple Music still has one major selling point: They own iTunes so anything on iTunes is on AM. For spotify and other streaming services you still have to wait a couple hours to a few days for something to appear on the other streaming services
That being said I moved back to Spotify after a year because of how awful and buggy the UI in AM is. If Apple Music could improve the UI and fix the bugs that have been about for years they could really do well. But I have my doubts as to whether that will ever happen
>> "- Spotify gives me limitless account (with ads) for free, this one not."
I'm happy about this. Maybe they can convince people music is worth paying money for and instead of wasting time selling ads they can spend time and money building a good product.
>> "- Spotify is even available as a web app,and desktop client which i use most. This one???"
>> - "The item you've requested is not currently available in the Swedish Store, but it is available in the U.S. Store."
Like most music/video services it's launching in one location (US) and planning to expand to others soon. e.g. iTunes Radio is still US only. Spotify took years to branch out of Europe.
>> What are the advantages I will gain if I switch from Spotify?
After a few hours of use the main benefit seems to be playlists. I've described how they work in another post on this thread so won't repeat but they seem infinitely more useful to me on this than playlists on Spotify (which I've been using for around 5 years).
> For instance, Apple Music, which has gotten over 50 million paying users not by being the best music app but by being pushed heavily by Apple as the platform owner.
Apple Music has more music, a longer free trial and integration with iTunes which lets you upload your own music and sync it to all your devices among other features. By one estimate it converts free users into subscribers at 3X the rate of Spotify.[1] That’s a sign of happier customers, not just being pushed by the platform. Worth mentioning they pay artists more too.
And what are you saying, Warren would let Apple run the store but would have to break off Music into a separate entity? All their other bundled apps too like Maps? I didn’t get that from the proposal.. and it doesn’t strike me as consumer friendly.
You do know that Spotify has 600 million users? And that it got those users without practices like pushing its app in phone setup, account setup, settings, home screen, default music app, default music app in carplay etc.?
> As an aside, the source of this complaint being Spotify is interesting. I would love to know from artist who pays better between the two (because I dont think its spottify)
Neither pays artists directly. They pay money to rights holders. Why no one ever questions the rights holders is beyond my comprehension at this point.
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