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Give is 2 years and Apple will be in the lead. Much to the chagrin of many an Apple-hating MR regular.

True. I use spotify right now as it seems a bit more polished from my user experience. But definitely getting back to Apple Music once it gets improved enough for me to pay for its service.
 
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The first service to utilize microtransactions for listeners to support their favorite bands directly will win (or offer other ways for listeners to get extra content from artists at small price points).

$9.99 - 12.99 for an album is a big purchasing decision. Paying a dollar to unlock some bonus tracks on my favorite album is pretty appealing, especially when those tracks follow me around everywhere.

Gaming is a hell of a lot more fun than consuming music, but it doesn't have to be that much of a gap. Downloadable content is wildly successful for a reason. The music industry can learn a lot from video games.

Also, so many YouTubers (including musicians) are making a living from their living rooms, yet musicians still feel they need to schlep across the country in sweaty vans, hoping someone buys a T-shirt, to build a following.

Streaming isn't going anywhere. If artists don't think it's the solution, they need to adapt to it. There's opportunity there.
 
But still they are presenting bad earnings every year and keeps paying ridiculously low streaming revenue to artists and labels (I'm an artist with my own label so I know what I 'm talking about)
 
Apple had to create an ecosystem to begin with. That took more than the time Spotify exists.

How long it took apple to get to 1 Billion active devices is irrelevant. We are talking users base at launch of Apple Music and launch of Spotify.

The point is that there are about 1 Billion active devices with apple music installed, cause the users did not get a choice.

When Spotify launched, how many devices was it forced on?? It takes a very long time to grow from zero.

As I said, had apple got it right at launch AW, would have dwarfed Spotify user base.
 
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The headline here should be:

In Under One Year, Apple Music Has Amassed Half the Paid Subscribers That Spotify Got In Five


As Apple moves its iTunes purchasers to a streaming model, they'll catch up and leave 3rd parties like Spotify well behind. AppleMusic simply has advantages as a native app that make it very hard for 3rd parties like Spotify to compete. The same reason that browsers like Firefox, Chrome and Opera can't compete with Safari on iOS.

That said, now that Apple seems to be working through its growing pains and fixing some of the issues with the service, I hope that they put some time into partnerships like Spotify has been good at. Allowing Spotify users to control music in Uber cars is a great example. Apple can solve this by introducing MusicKit that enables apps like Uber to integrate Apple Music into their own UI.
 
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Spotify is doomed. Their free subscriber base is too large, not enough of them are being converted into paid subscribers, and they lose money on every free subscriber (the income they make from the ads is not enough to cover the royalties they need to pay). The bigger they grow the more trouble they are in.

At some point Spotify will need to drop the free tier altogether. They can't turn it off overnight (and piss off a lot of customers), but I bet they start removing features to make the free tier less and less desirable. And then hope when people stop using it they convert to paid subscribers (instead of switching to another free alternative or paying Apple instead).

Apple was very smart to only offer a paid subscription and avoid all the problems Spotify now has to deal with.
 
Actually, not surprising considering Apple Music is a massive mess from UX and UI point of view. Just my .02.

I used to think that but I've been using the streaming service for months now without any problems. I think the problem is with those who don't want anything to do with Apple Music and just want to use the music app to manage their own curated collection. I haven't had too many issues there either but I don't have a large collection of personal curated music. The only annoying thing is when iTunes says a file isn't eligible for iCloud Music Library but doesn't tell you why.
 
They're not a startup.

They sure act like a startup though.

They recently raised $1 billion in convertible debt from investors.

That sounds like something a startup would do... not an 8 year old company.

The truth is... Spotify is having trouble making money despite billions in revenue.

Question to all... Will Spotify be around in 5 years? Aren't these investors gonna want their money back at some point?
 
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huh? why would i not be allowed to listen to music on my laptop at work
I don't know what company you work for but where I work our corporate internet would never even allow me to get to Spotify. Same with YouTube, streaming radio stations and just about any social network outside of LinkedIn.
 
Good. Competition is GOOD.

Also, anyone that expected Apple Music to overtake Spotify within the circle of one year has lost their marbles. The fact Apple has launched the service barely a year ago and has this many subscribers is a big deal. I wouldn't expect apple to rest on their laurels - they know music streaming is the future.
 
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I don't know what company you work for but where I work our corporate internet would never even allow me to get to Spotify. Same with YouTube, streaming radio stations and just about any social network outside of LinkedIn.

Your corporate network is setup is common

Most work environment should have a guest network for those services.
 
Amazon didn't turn a profit for the first 20 years of its existence (because they invested in growth).
And how many companies can get away with that? Amazon seems to be the exception not the norm.
 
in danmark mobile free subscription Spotify,

More and more mobile companies will become part of the entertainment industry and has mobile subscription with free entertainment for mobile; Music, HBO, Spotify, TV2 and TDC Play are examples of free music, films and series, as included in the mobile subscription are.

But the fun stops not necessarily with moving images and 50 million tracks. More mobile subscription also includes free e-books, TV On Demand services and entertainment for children, and there may be a lot of money to save on mobile subscription with free entertainment.

Music, movies and entertainment in the broad form, have become standard fixtures in several Danish mobile subscriptions and more and more mobile companies are guaranteed to spice up their subscriptions with more entertainment in the future. It can provide a lot of sense, since many Danes so can save a lot of money on entertainment services, which they would be interested in paying for
 
So screw the regular user by providing a paid-only service, right?

I am a fan that Spotify is providing a free tier. It has worked out well for them, clearly.

Did you read the post to which you responded? It simply made the point that one would expect free service to result in significant market share.
 
I think they need to decouple the player from the operating system.... why do I need to wait for iOS 10 for an upgrade on the service? Also, the service needs to become more social..... I love that my friends on Spotify can send me playlists and I can see what they're listening to (i find a lot of good music this way).

Apple Music can't even match the current feature set in Spotify.... when in reality they really need to exceed and enhance the Spotify player.

You can share playlists in Apple Music, not sure if you can see what they're currently listening to though.
 
they had the head-start so this should not be surprising.
It's growing just as fast as Apple Music is, so actually it is surprising. Everyone was saying that Apple Music would be the death of Spotify and yet Spotify just keeps growing at insane rates.
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Give it 2 years and Apple will be in the lead. Much to the chagrin of many an Apple-hating MR regular.
Do you have proof of this? Considering that Spotify keeps adding new paid subscribers at pretty much the same rate as Apple Music it's not likely that AM will be catching up anytime soon.
 
But it took Spotify 5 years to get 15mil paid subscribers.
On the other hand, they added 50 million (20 million paying and 30 million ad-supported) over just the last two years. In an exponentially growing market, you need to compare the numbers in the same time periods.
 
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