But Youtube isn't really free. It's ad-financed, and it does pay royalties to the lables from the ad revenue. Not really different than the free tier of Spotify. It's also far less convenient for mobile use, since video streaming uses much more data, and downloading for offline listening is not possible. You also don't get features like Spotify's fantastic Discover playlist etc.After reading through most of the comments before me, it seems there are people that prefer Spotify over Apple and vice versa. Features seems to be comparable, and now price is as well. So mostly preference. Here is a problem that isn't being discussed, the makers of music give their music away by posting it on Youtube as a video or other. I see my daughters and even my wife "listen" to music via Youtube -- FREE. Until the industry fixes that it seems that the streaming services will have an uphill fight to be profitable. And as has been stated in prior comments, Spotify has not other source of revenue (like Tidal) so it will be more difficult for them to stay afloat. In other words, it all Google's fault.
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Remember that the Discover playlist requires some time to learn your interests. From what I understand it basically looks at what kind of songs you play, and then searches music in the playlists of other users that listen to the same music. So the more you listen (and skip titles that you don't like) the better the recommendations get. I've been using it for half a year now and it's consistently amazing now. I discover at least a dozen great songs every week that I save to my library.Another thing to try this week when I try to see if Spotify can meet my needs as well as Apple Music can.