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Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

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Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#61

Post by hbn »

manmal wrote: post #54
schoolornot wrote: post #40

Eddy Cue should be fired for allowing Spotify to reach such critical mass. Music and playlists is such a sticky ecosystem that people don't just up and switch services at a whim. The 381 million users that Spotify accumulated over the years will never switch to another platform. Apple lost so many years with trying to spin Beats into something that it wasn't, rewriting clients, and putting out garbage like "Your Stat…

Their Music clients are also still far away from what I‘d expect from a Trillion dollar company.

I actually like the iOS Music app (though their queue system isn't as intuitive as Google Play Music/YouTube Music) but their webapp and Mac app are hot garbage.

I recall seeing an article that said the Mac app was being rewritten in the new macOS betas.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#62

Post by __david__ »

shaan7 wrote: post #41

I dread the day when iTunes stops letting you buy DRM-free music. I don't know anywhere else I can do that easily (and is the only Apple service I use).

Nowadays I tend to use bandcamp.com over iTunes for purchased music. It tends to only have smaller artists on there but they also sell flac/wav, which I like better than buying compressed music (I listen to things compressed but if I'm buying it I want it future-proof).

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#63

Post by circa »

aparticulate wrote: post #50

sluggish UI aside, I really don't like Apple Music's TASTE in music. Spotify's playlists are reliably more niche. Apple is far more "GRAMMY/Top 40"-oriented and that's just not interesting to me. Also, Apple should have bought Rdio.

If you think Apple's TASTE is bad, you should try TIDAL. Its really bad.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#64

Post by deadmutex »

sedeki wrote: post #57

I don't see YouTube Music mentioned anywhere in the report?

"YouTube Music was the only Western DSP to increase global market share during this the period. YouTube Music particularly resonates among Gen Z and younger Millennials, which should have alarm bells ringing for Spotify, as their core base of Millennial subscribers from the 2010s in the West are now beginning to age."

It's also in the chart.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#65

Post by joshstrange »

hbn wrote: post #56
joshstrange wrote: post #39

I am all in on Apple and only a few dollars away from the Apple One bundle being worth it for me but I just don't like Apple Music. The UI is just too difficult to use and it feels slower than it should be, definitely slower than Spotify. While I have no love for Spotify's podcast ventures and dislike them trying to push me to listen to podcasts on their platform, I do love it for music and it "Just Works". Also I ca…

Spotify is a nonstarter for me because I can't upload my own music. I don't want to be beholden to whatever they decide I can listen to, and there's lots of music I want to listen to that's not in any streaming catalogue. edit: note I say "upload," not syncing local files to my phone. I want a built-in streaming catalogue + cloud music locker that all my devices stream from, not something I have to manually transfer…

That's completely fair and I even pay for iTunes Match even though I don't really use it anymore, it and Apple Music never meshed well in my experience but maybe it's gotten better. There is a way to listen to your own music in Spotify (even mobile) [0] but it might be a little shaky, I doubt they care much about it. I've used it before but only on desktop.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-upload-music-to-spoti...

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#66

Post by echelon »

rzanella wrote: post #21
echelon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long term, Spotify and Netflix are in trouble. Amazon and Apple are in this space, and they can use their trillion dollar market caps to decimate single-revenue stream companies. The Department of Justice should do something about this. Neither Amazon nor Apple should be in these businesses. They do too much and apply price pressure unfairly. If this continues, $1T+ tech will be the entire economy. Netflix, Spotify,…

I agree with you, which is why I subscribe to Netflix and Spotify, but man... - Netflix's so-so content while being costlier - And Spotify push to have podcasts instead of decent radio are not helping...

Spotify is trying to add new revenue streams and revenue growth.

Netflix is fighting content being taken away - they didn't have their own, and now content owners realize the value of their catalogs. There are also lots of new players (HBO, Disney, Peacock, Amazon, Apple). Once Netflix builds a bigger catalog, they can relax and curate better.

Amazon and Apple don't have these problems. They can purchase studios to artificially build their catalogues. If they weren't buying content, Netflix would be paying less. In fact, Netflix would probably be the beneficiary of studio consolidation if the giants were not writing checks too.

Spotify and Netflix don't have a grocery store or hardware business unit to help speed up investments.

It's vastly unfair to have horizontally scaled command of several industries, especially when they have built in synergies you can abuse.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#67

Post by reaperducer »

aparticulate wrote: post #50

sluggish UI aside, I really don't like Apple Music's TASTE in music. Spotify's playlists are reliably more niche. Apple is far more "GRAMMY/Top 40"-oriented and that's just not interesting to me. Also, Apple should have bought Rdio.

I really don't like Apple Music's TASTE in music.

I'm with you there.

Apple (and really all the streaming services) are constantly crowing about how many millions of songs they have. How about some metric for how many good songs they have?

80% of my wife's record collection is not available on Apple Music, so I'm left ripping her records in what used to be my spare time.

The only reason we have Apple Music is for when an artist she follows puts out a new record, so she can listen to the album to decide if it's worth buying.

Also, Apple Music's Siri integration is horrendous. For example, no matter what request I shout to it, Siri can only play one particular song by Weird Al Yankovich. My guess is that there's something with the quotation marks commonly used in his name screwing up Apple's search mechanism.

I have high hopes for Apple's new classical streaming service. It has a chance to redeem itself there.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#68

Post by salamandersauce »

criddell wrote: post #48
circa wrote: post #19

I made the switch last September from Spotify back to Apple Music. 1 reason and 1 reason only. Lossless. Why Spotify still doesn't offer this as an option is beyond me. I get that its a small amount of people who care but still why not offer it? I would pay a little more to use their service.

I've been trying to use Apple Music with their web client and it's astonishingly slow. I can't understand how it could be so bad.

Yeah it's not good. I've only used a handful of times and every single time it just stopped playing in the middle of a song for no reason. It also sucks that they can't be bothered to create apps for anything other than their own stuff and Android. I can use Amazon music or Spoify with my Garmin Watch but not Apple Music.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#69

Post by my123 »

hbn wrote: post #61
manmal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their Music clients are also still far away from what I‘d expect from a Trillion dollar company.

I actually like the iOS Music app (though their queue system isn't as intuitive as Google Play Music/YouTube Music) but their webapp and Mac app are hot garbage. I recall seeing an article that said the Mac app was being rewritten in the new macOS betas.

The iOS and Android apps are both kinda okay, but the web, Mac and Windows ones just suck.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#70

Post by gerash »

I recently switched to iPhone from Pixel. The overall UI touch responsiveness and battery life is an upgrade but the OS features are neither upgrade or downgrade.

I also got Apple Music trial for 6 months while having a YT subscription. Even though the app seems just fine and nice looking but why would anyone pay for it vs. YouTube Music? With YouTube you get a larger selection of songs (including all user uploaded stuff to YT) and it removes ads on YT. So what exactly is the rationale to pay for Apple Music?

I believe Apple Music being the default option on Apple devices plays the biggest role in its market share

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