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Spotify Continues to Grow Faster Than Apple Music Thanks to Free Tier

Five (5) Ways to Fix The Apple Music Franchise:

  1. Make Music Fun Again: Bring back a real iPod totally focused on the enjoyment of listening to music
  2. Rebuild the Music App from the ground up. Currently, it's just plain horrible. I rarely listen to music on my iPhone and iPad. Whereas in the past, I was never without my iPod even when I had an iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc.
  3. iTunes needs to be broken up and it's music feature should be native and/or completely web based/web client.
  4. Buy Pandora and use their technologies to really mix and match music. Apple's current capabilities are laughable.
  5. Go back to supporting WiFi networks. Make the Home Pod and smaller versions the successors to the Airport Extreme family.

Failing to innovate technologically, ignoring your passionate music listeners, buying up silly karaoke tv shows, etc. is just not going to get you where you think you ought to be.
 
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I believe that AM sub would double if they would only release a web player. I know many who won't touch AM because they refuse to use iTunes.
 
cBraunDesign said:
I didn't even give the entire trial period a go. I gave it a few days, and knew straight away that it wasn't what I had hoped for. Cancelled within a week.
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Same. Been waiting MANY years for them to finally do a service like Spotify and they really screwed it up. They kept marketing it as an interface for simple people, and yet it's a convoluted mess. I have no idea what they were thinking. If they had just mostly kept it like Rdio it would have been good.
 
Keirasplace said:
So, people prefer free stufff huh... OK then.
[doublepost=1497551703][/doublepost]

It's about profits and Apple is winning that battle, just like Apple won vs Android on profits.

That's it.

Profits comes from willingness to actually pay for a service; meaning the Service is worth more to you.
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lol Spotify generates far more money than Apple Music does. Spotify at this point just chooses to re-invest it all back into the service to ensure it remains #1. Apple half-assing it is why they're turning a slight profit and also why their service stinks compared to Spotify.
 
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Apple should just allow third party user interfaces for the music app. Than everyone is happy!
 
RamsayBolton said:
Still no Spotify LOSSLESS.

NOT INTERESTED.
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Really?

You REALLY want to waste 5 X (avg.) the data amount for an almost imperceptible difference in audio quality?

Honestly, I like the best fidelity, too; but we're talking about the modern-day replacement for a radio station or walkman that you listen to on your phone or computer while at work with $30 earbuds, or in the car, on whatever abomination it has for an audio system; not a serious replacement for your home music collection that you listen to on your $35,000 home playback equipment.

I buy my music on DVD-A whenever I can; but I still thoroughly enjoy the 128k AAC quality of Apple Music as I sit here typing this...
 
MacsRuleOthersDrool said:
You REALLY want to waste 5 X (avg.) the data amount for an almost imperceptible difference in audio quality?
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Please stop saying this. Thanks.

Honestly, I like the best fidelity, too; but we're talking about the modern-day replacement for a radio station or walkman that you listen to on your phone or computer while at work with $30 earbuds, or in the car, on whatever abomination it has for an audio system; not a serious replacement for your home music collection that you listen to on your $35,000 home playback equipment.
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WTF?

I buy my music on DVD-A whenever I can; but I still thoroughly enjoy the 128k AAC quality of Apple Music as I sit here typing this...
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Good for you!
 
Hey MacRumors, if you're going to run a puff piece on Spotify, at least do a little investigating first. While their revenue grew at ~50%, their losses grew at over double that rate. The only reason they're still afloat is due to VC money funding that free tier.
 
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I too prefer Spotify to Apple music. My reasons are as follows:
1. Spotify is available as a light-weight application across ALL my devices
2. Spotify doesn't CONSTANTLY pester me to update (I'm looking at you iTunes)
3. Spotify's song algorithms are much better than Apple's. It actually suggests new songs that I LIKE on a weekly basis.
4. Spotify's user-interface, while not great, is still better than Apple's
5. Spotify's step-rhythm detecting workout feature

That is a pretty hard combo for Apple to overcome.
 
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dan110 said:
Five (5) Ways to Fix The Apple Music Franchise:

  1. Make Music Fun Again: Bring back a real iPod totally focused on the enjoyment of listening to music
  2. Rebuild the Music App from the ground up. Currently, it's just plain horrible. I rarely listen to music on my iPhone and iPad. Whereas in the past, I was never without my iPod even when I had an iPhone, iPad, MacBook, etc.
  3. iTunes needs to be broken up and it's music feature should be native and/or completely web based/web client.
  4. Buy Pandora and use their technologies to really mix and match music. Apple's current capabilities are laughable.
  5. Go back to supporting WiFi networks. Make the Home Pod and smaller versions the successors to the Airport Extreme family.

Failing to innovate technologically, ignoring your passionate music listeners, buying up silly karaoke tv shows, etc. is just not going to get you where you think you ought to be.
Click to expand...

Spot on. Make music fun again
 
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Chupa Chupa said:
Well not totally true, it brings in less money to the labels because the royalties on the "free" stream are slightly less than paid. Spotify though is likely to be profitable this year for the first time ever. Recall how long it too Amazon to get traction by pricing many products almost in a preditory fashion and only in recent years became profitable. Spotify isn't going away anytime soon.

But even the labels and artists, while not making as much money on the front end do make it back via concerts and merchandise, which has become the central way income is earned in music industry of late. Which brings me back to my original question why they are so against it because, just like radio back in the 50-2000's, free streaming is how many people find new artists. It's even a better situation for small artists that labels don't want to bankroll a big album and tour for because people can find them where they normally would not have had a chance on corporate owned radio stations.
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The free tier brings in significantly less revenue than the paid tier does, many multiples less.

The free (i.e. ad-supported) tier functions as somewhat of a loss leader. Spotify realizes negative gross margins on that tier. With the paid tier, Spotify at least realizes gross profit. That gross profit is, of course, and for now, more than consumed by operating and financing costs. But Spotify's revenue from the paid tier is greater than its cost of revenue for that tier, even though that cost of revenue (which is mostly its payments to rights-holders) for that tier is multiples less than its cost of revenue for the free tier.

As to why labels and artists might be against free streaming services: It's a bit of a balancing act. To the extent those free services allow some people to not buy music (as physical media or digital downloads) which they might otherwise buy or pay for streaming services which they might otherwise pay for, they cost rights-holders money. Those rights-holders do get some money from the free services, and there is of course the promotional benefit which you allude to, so they have to consider the balance between those gains and the potential losses from other sources of revenue. But those rights-holders get considerably less revenue from users of the free services than they get from paying users, so they would generally prefer the latter to be more prevalent.
 
It would be interesting to know what the usage difference is for Spotify with "free" users vs. "paid" users. I'm guessing that a considerable chunk of those free listeners aren't using the service that often.
 
A big part is probably the £0.99 for 3 months premium offer. Wonder how many stay on afterwards.
 
joeykingpin said:
I am an Apple diehard, but I must admit that Spotify offers a much better user interface for paid subscribers. I finally dropped Apple Music last month and won't return until they make some improvements.
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I had the opposite experience, I totally disliked the spotify UI and service so I subscribed to Apple.
It's all integrated, works great in the car and Apple TV. The family plans worked out for me so can't complain.
 
Too many people here think that Spotify isn't making money off those free-of-charge members. Which is wrong -- they are making a lot of money still.
 
WhoDaKat said:
I don't understand why artists continue to let Spotify and YouTube give out their content for free.
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Because 95% of artist don't have a say in this, it's the producers / record companies who are willing to go along with Spotify regulations simply because it brings money in the pocket. With millions and millions of listeners you get a lot of "free" attention from people who might later on then decide to buy a ticket to see a concert...
 
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