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Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

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Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#131

Post by hbn »

Case81 wrote: post #96
gerash wrote: post #70

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 s…

Not sure about Apple Music but I simply don’t use YouTube Music because it’s actually missing a LOT of stuff for me. Off the top of my head, some Beatles remasters and obscure synth artists

Yeah, and I've had artists I follow release new music, and it seems to sometimes not land on YTM the same day as Apple Music and Spotify. Certain albums just never showed up.

And you know what, I can't blame them for not caring about keeping up with Google's services. Who knows how many days YTM has before it's axed and replaced with something else.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#132

Post by music_throwaway »

wwweston wrote: post #34

I pulled the trigger on an Apple Music subscription this year because it pays artists better. Spotify still considers a penny per stream "entitled" according to an exec giving one of the most absolutely tone-deaf AND nonsensical justifications for their choices ("we solved piracy by more or less adopting piracy's business model and legitimizing it!") [0] Apple stepped up to that level. [1] Revenue streams from record…

I really respect your decision to choose your streaming service based on how they each pay out artists. I work for an independent label and the most recent analysis we did shows that in the US, Apple was paying out roughly just under $0.007 (7/10 of a penny) / stream, while Spotify was paying out around $0.004. These rates go down as you bring a more international user base, depending on where in the world the music was consumed. Of those payouts, depending on the clout of the artist, they're typically only seeing their 15-20% royalty of those payout rates on the recorded music side (music publishing is a different story). So it's even worse than it seems!

A big reason that Apple is able to pay out higher rates is they're fully a premium business model with no ad-supported tier (they have a free trial period though). Due to Spotify's ad-supported tier, artists are able to reach a more cost-sensitive consumer, but at a lower overall blended rate per stream.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#133

Post by ssully »

gerash wrote: post #70

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 s…

I was a Google Play Music user on iOS. I switched to Apple Music after Play moved to Youtube Music. Compared to Google Play Music, I found the entire experience to be worse in Youtube Music and got zero benefit from the switch. After using Youtube Music for a few months I did a 3 month trial for Apple Music and just never went back.

Also does Youtube Music premium remove Youtube ads? That was a thing with Google Play Music for years, but I thought they removed the benefit with the switch? Looking at the subscription page [1], they only mention ad-free music.

[1]: https://music.youtube.com/music_premium/musicfeed

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#134

Post by kenhwang »

e40 wrote: post #130
kitsunesoba wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that kills Spotify for me is how pushy it is combined with the frequent unnecessary UI changes. The lack of an API that allows track playback is a huge, huge bummer too (look up the saga of libspotfy if curious) — shockingly, Apple Music is more open in this regard, with multiple alternative third party clients being available thanks to JS and native Mac/iOS SDKs.

I'm curious what UI changes you're talking about. I can't remember the last time there was a UI change, and I've been using them for 5+ years. In fact, as I was reading these comments I was thinking they've been totally stagnant UI-wise, and the only hate I for the iOS app is the pop ups for events, etc. I make a point to never read any text in them and dismiss immediately.

The big one pinning podcast recommendations to the home screen above the fold with no option remove it. Same with unremovable "recommended" playlists that mix music with podcasts. Podcast settings are at the top of the list in settings too.

But because podcasts are treated equally to music on every page and user backlash to remove podcasts, they added [Music] and [Podcasts & Shows] filter buttons to the header of those pages, wasting page real estate. But the slap in the face is it doesn't even remember to keep those filters applied.

Plus, even if you actually like some podcasts, it'll randomly swap out [Your shows] section for podcast [Recommendations] instead.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#135

Post by kenhwang »

music_throwaway wrote: post #132
wwweston wrote: post #34

I pulled the trigger on an Apple Music subscription this year because it pays artists better. Spotify still considers a penny per stream "entitled" according to an exec giving one of the most absolutely tone-deaf AND nonsensical justifications for their choices ("we solved piracy by more or less adopting piracy's business model and legitimizing it!") [0] Apple stepped up to that level. [1] Revenue streams from record…

I really respect your decision to choose your streaming service based on how they each pay out artists. I work for an independent label and the most recent analysis we did shows that in the US, Apple was paying out roughly just under $0.007 (7/10 of a penny) / stream, while Spotify was paying out around $0.004. These rates go down as you bring a more international user base, depending on where in the world the music…

Do you have numbers for Tidal or Amazon Music? I'd guess they'd land somewhere between the two.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#136

Post by mupuff1234 »

msbarnett wrote: post #97
cardosof wrote: post #90

Correct me if I'm wrong: the first and second ones in market share aren't the most interesting part. What's insightful is that Amazon is at third. Spotify is a pure player in the space and with it's years of growth it makes sense to be #1. Apple, while not a pure player as Spotify, has a good share of the mobile devices market and smartwatch, and that and music go hand in hand. Amazon? To Amazon music is just another…

Amazon Music is a throw-in on Prime, so technically I "have" it as a subscriber to Prime, but I've literally never used it. Of all of the players in this space, it's not clear to me that Amazon's "subscriber share" reflects anything at all considering that it's not something you subscribe to on its own and not generally considered a major benefit of the subscription it's included in. Would be interesting to see what…

I'm a prime user and wasn't even aware of Amazon music.

I'm guessing that when Alexa plays music it counts as an Amazon music user.

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#137

Post by callahad »

wwweston wrote: post #34

I pulled the trigger on an Apple Music subscription this year because it pays artists better. Spotify still considers a penny per stream "entitled" according to an exec giving one of the most absolutely tone-deaf AND nonsensical justifications for their choices ("we solved piracy by more or less adopting piracy's business model and legitimizing it!") [0] Apple stepped up to that level. [1] Revenue streams from record…

Deezer has been pretty staunch in their advocacy for "User Centric Payment Systems" (https://www.deezer.com/us/ucps) where your monthly subscription gets proportionally split between the artists you stream, rather than being put into a common pool which then pays out based on global listening stats.

They can't unilaterally move to UCPS without renegotiating licensing deals with labels, but they do decent advocacy work, including publishing a personalized dashboard at https://www.deezer.com/us/ucps/me which, for me, opens with "Hi callahad, during December 2021 your Deezer subscription generated: 97% of royalties for artists I didn't stream, 3% of royalties for artists I did stream."

It's apparently working, since seeing numbers presented that starkly prevented me from switching to Spotify (and got me to post this comment...)

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#139

Post by pph »

circa wrote: post #63
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.

I'm currently trying Tidal and that's the main issue why I won't stay. Somehow there only seem to be official playlists, so if I search for a somewhat niche genre [0] I'll probably not find anything relevant, except maybe some compilation releases of dubious value.

I managed to bring their auto generated playlists to an acceptable level by favoring enough artists, but it's still a very lacking experience.

[0] e.g. searching for Detroit house playlists gives me "Classic Rock Classics". Lofi house → "Epidemic Sound Christmas".

Re: Music subscriber market shares Q2 2021

#140

Post by dole »

kenhwang wrote: post #135
music_throwaway wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really respect your decision to choose your streaming service based on how they each pay out artists. I work for an independent label and the most recent analysis we did shows that in the US, Apple was paying out roughly just under $0.007 (7/10 of a penny) / stream, while Spotify was paying out around $0.004. These rates go down as you bring a more international user base, depending on where in the world the music…

Do you have numbers for Tidal or Amazon Music? I'd guess they'd land somewhere between the two.

# of Streams to make US $1:

YouTube Music: 1,250

Pandora: 752

Spotify: 315

Amazon Music: 249

Deezer: 156

Apple Music: 128

Tidal: 78

Napster: 53

Source: https://hiphopdx.com/news/id.66835/title.t-pain-disrupts-mus...

Original source: https://twitter.com/TPAIN/status/1476032631255060490 (not sure why this link isn't working)

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