Riley Berrodin

Stephen Cirino

MBET*207*01

12 March 2021

Apple Inc. revolutionized the digital music industry in 2003 with the creation of iTunes. Though the digital music industry around the turn of the century was solely centered around the trade of illegally pirated music, iTunes made it so consumers could buy and download songs legally, with proceeds going to the artists. This caused Apple, a leading contributor in the field of computers, to find great success in the music industry, paving the way for future endeavors, such as the creation of the iPod as well as the iPhone. Along with computers, iPods allowed users to download music and listen to it on the go, be it running or on the train. The technology has carried on to the iPhone as well, where users have access to music in the same place as their social media and phone services. Since 2003, however, the digital music industry has evolved even further past just buying and downloading music; the popularization of the streaming model has overtaken the market, replacing digital downloads in the mainstream. In order to keep up with this new norm of music streaming, Apple decided they needed their own streaming service.

In 2014, Apple bought Beats Electronics, including newly-founded Beats Music (Karp et al. 1). Shortly after this acquisition, Apple announced the launch of their brand-new streaming service, Apple Music, on June 30th, 2015. This application built off of both the massive user base of iTunes as well as the technology and framework of the Beats Music service, with Beats Music subscriptions even automatically carrying over to Apple Music. It is thought that this quicker way of acquiring and building off of premade assets was a way for Apple to catch up to Spotify, who had already accumulated over 18 million paid subscribers by 2015 (Statista).

Users are given a few different options in terms of pricing for Apple Music. Any new user may start with a 3 month free trial, where they can get an idea of how the UI works and what music is available to them. The standard plan costs $10 a month, and allows one user to access and download the 70 million+ songs available, as well as music videos. Apple Music is also available as a family subscription, costing $15 a month and available to 6 people under one subscription; a college plan also exists, costing the user $5 a month for all the normal Apple Music features, requiring a valid college ID. One last plan is named “Apple One,” where the user can pay monthly for a bundle of Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud, Apple News+, and Apple Fitness, offering similar plans for an individual and a family (Apple). As of June 2020, Apple Music has over 72 million monthly subscribers (Statista). In terms of artist payment, Daniel Sanchez at Digital Music News writes that, “today, that number has settled at $0.00735 [per stream]. Artists on Apple Music would need around 200,272 plays to earn the US monthly minimum wage amount” (Sanchez)

The platforms that are most similar to Apple music are Spotify and Amazon Music. Launched in 2008, Spotify Technologies S.A. was among the first music streaming platforms available. It has since become, and remained, a monolith, towering over all competition in the sheer size of its user base of over 144 million as of Q3 2020 (Statista). Similarly to Apple Music, Spotify offers new users a free trial of their premium subscription, albeit for only 1 month. However, unlike Apple Music, Spotify offers a free-to-use service that is supported by ads. There were a reported 185 million ad-supported users in Q3 of 2020 (Statista). This “freemium” style of operation, along with many other innovations such as algorithmically-generated playlists that are personalized for each user, have led Spotify to become not only the largest, but almost the standard in terms of new features. Spotify’s payment options are very similar to Apple’s, and are as follows: free, individual ($10/month), Duo ($13/month, allows two users to share payment, ideal for couples), family ($15/month, has Spotify for Kids access, up to 6 people total), and the student plan ($5/month, bundled with ad-supported Hulu as well as SHOWTIME) (Spotify). One difference from Apple is the lack of a more bundle-oriented package like Apple One; however, this is mostly due to Spotify being a company specializing solely in audio, rather than entertainment and news as well. They specialize solely in audio, and not just music, because Spotify offers users the ability to listen to podcasts as well.

Amazon.com, Inc., founded in 1994, launched Amazon Music in 2007 and acted as a platform similar to iTunes before transitioning to streaming in 2016. As of January 2020, 55 million people use Amazon Music (Statista), including paying and ad-supported listeners. Amazon, being an online shopping company that has since transitioned to entertainment, has a unique pricing structure for their services. Amazon’s traditional premium service for shopping, Amazon Prime, originally offered users free shipping, 2-day Prime shipping, as well as other discounts and promotions. Since its implementation, Prime has expanded to now offer subscribers the traditional Prime benefits, as well as access to Prime video, ad-free music streaming, unlimited photo storage, and unlimited reading for $13 a month (Amazon). While the amount of music offered to Prime subscribers is limited, it still allows subscribers to listen without advertisements. Outside of Prime exists the more traditional streaming platform, Amazon Music Unlimited. For $10 a month, Amazon Music Unlimited offers users unlimited streaming of all music, not just a limited amount, as well as offline listening and ad-free streaming. This version does come with a free alternative like Spotify, offering ad-supported listening. The main feature that sets Amazon Music apart is its ability to be compatible with Amazon devices such as Echo and Fire TV, even offering a $4/month plan for Echo users (Amazon). What sets Apple Music apart from both Spotify and Amazon Music is its compatibility with iPhones and other Apple devices. Apple Music is integrated with the pre-downloaded Music app on all devices, meaning one can sync their streamed music with all their owned music in their iCloud music library, allowing them to seamlessly listen to both (Gerbino 3). It is also convenient to use your pre-existing Apple ID, rather than having to create a new account or download a new app.

With “over 70 million songs” available, there are many artists that have fared well, and also not so well, on the platform (Apple). Of these artists, the most controversial would have to be Taylor Swift. Before Apple Music even launched, Swift published a letter on blog website Tumblr titled “To Apple, Love Taylor.” This letter focused specifically on the 3-month trial period for new users; Apple originally planned for NO royalties to be paid out from the free trial users. Since this was the launch of the entire service, every single user was operating on this free trial, meaning absolutely no royalties would be paid out in the first 3 months. Swift states “three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing,” going on to urge Apple to change their plan (Coffey 12). The amount of uproar this caused gave Apple no choice but to change their decision and pay artists what they earn, even from free trial users. Despite this rocky, confrontational start, Swift has gone on to forge a very positive relationship with Apple. In fact, “in 2015, it was announced that subscribers of Apple Music would have access to a full feature length documentary of Swift’s 1989 World Tour. This concert film would be exclusive to Apple Music consumers and as of now is not available on any other site or platform” (Coffey 13). This move by Swift not only worked to smooth tensions, but actually took advantage of Apple’s unique feature of video streaming. As far as what she has to say about Spotify, “Swift is determined to show Spotify that they must move away from their ‘freemium’ service to a full paid subscription service in order to entice her and the other artists that have pulled their catalogues to come back” (Coffey 13).

Though Swift is a contemporary artist with both good and bad experiences with the services, there are countless legacy artists that have (or haven’t!) made their back catalogues available. One instance of a legacy artist having found success on Apple Music is The Beatles. The Beatles actually weren’t on any streaming services until December 24th, 2015, less than 6 months after the launch of Apple Music. This allowed Apple Music to capitalize on the newly-opened door that is The Beatles’ discography, allowing them to use it in marketing following the conclusion of most users’ 3-month trial. The main reason Apple Music had an advantage over Spotify was the addition of short documentaries at the end of each studio album (Apple Music). These gave users just starting to listen to The Beatles some context to the music they just listened to, and only took around 4–5 minutes each. Where The Beatles have found success, other artists don’t even try; among the most famous is country star Garth Brooks. If you were to look up his name on Apple Music, you would find nothing but collaborative material from the artist. This is a huge deal, due to the fact that Brooks has sold the most solo albums ever in the US, and is second in total album sales in the world to the Beatles — what a coincidence (Raphael)! It wasn’t out of neglect that Brooks chose not to put his music on Apple Music, however, it was quite the opposite. Due to the previously stated statistics, Brooks had set his price of his licenses for streaming platforms to purchase at quite the pretty penny. When Brooks eventually made his music available to stream in 2016, it wasn’t Apple who won the bidding war, or even Spotify — it was Amazon Music. “The views they shared seemed to correlate with the views we shared,” states Brooks, dissatisfied with the way he was treated by both Apple and Spotify (Raphael).

I was able to interview 6 of my friends in a Google Form that asked them a few questions about their listening habits. The first question simply asked how they listened to music, given the options Streaming service (Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music, Amazon Music, etc.), Internet Radio (Pandora), Regular radio (FM), Physical (Vinyl, CD, Cassette), Soundcloud/Bandcamp, and Youtube. The response to this question was, unanimously, streaming. When prompted with why they chose streaming, 50% of respondents included “convenience” in their answer. Two answers mention the ability to listen portably. One response also included how easy it was to find new artists. All these points make sense, and were expected, as they are exactly what streaming services are marketed to do. I then go on to ask, “If you stream your music, which platform do you use? If you don’t stream music, what platform would you use?” 4 people (67%) responded with Spotify, the other 2 (33%) responded with Apple music. This does not stray far from the ratio of Apple Music users to total Spotify users, which is about 37% to 63%. When prompted with why they use their preferred platform, the Apple Music users believe it to have “the cleanest UI,” and that “it works best on my phone.” Interestingly enough, 4 respondents mentioned a family or student discount in their response. Though they say this is a leading factor as to why they choose that platform (both Spotify and Apple users said this), the plans offered by Apple and Spotify cost the same amount of money: $10 for the standard plan, $15 for the family plan, and $5 for the discounted student plan. It may have made sense if the Spotify users mentioned the bundling of Hulu and SHOWTIME along with the premium experience, but perhaps respondents used the fact there is a discounted rate to bolster some of their preconceived notions about the platforms. The next question asks if they think streaming pays artists fairly, 5 of which said no, 1 said they didn’t know. The question after this asks if they think streaming is here to stay, or if another way of consuming music will overtake it in the coming years; all respondents said that it is here to stay. The last question asks users how music would be listened to in an ideal world. 50% of respondents answered physical (vinyl, CD, cassette), while 50% answered streaming. The three “physical” respondents chose very different reasoning. One answer says that having tangible music paraphernalia is great, another says vinyl quality is superior, and the third states that physical music gives more money to the artist. Those who answered streaming emphasized the convenience of it, with one mentioning the way artists are able to grow on streaming services (form responses in Works Cited).