Spotify Faces the Music
There has been a long-standing debate over which is the superior streaming platform: Spotify or Apple Music, and Apple Music may finally be taking the lead. Currently, Spotify is more popular among teenagers, but considering the recent updates which display the streaming platform’s ignorance of user feedback, the app has arguably worsened. There have been lots of changes to the user interface, one of the biggest strengths Spotify initially held over Apple Music. These updates include the addition of lyrics to songs, the removal of previews, and changes to the icon and ability to like songs. Most importantly there has been an inflation of the price which has been consistent since its launch in 2011. Despite these vast and swiftly made changes to Spotify’s platform, even their positive modifications were late to the game, as Apple Music has always had lyrics available.
For many who have paid Spotify’s subscription for years, the extra dollar per month feels offensive. People expect a stable price for subscriptions, especially when it costs $9.99 for a single subscription to begin with. This is a high price to pay for streaming music, so a dollar on top of that is a significant difference. However, changing music streaming services from Spotify is very inconvenient due to the sheer amount of songs and playlists that have to be transferred; for some, these numbers can be in the thousands. Regardless of this change, some customers may still not turn away from Spotify, seeing as switching to and having to learn the inner workings of a whole new platform would not be ideal. Despite such changes, junior Samuel Ahn is not planning on switching his music platform affiliation any time in the future.
“Spotify is a lot better [than Apple Music],” Ahn said. “The name itself sounds better, and opening the app, [the interface] just looks nicer and [feels better] than Apple Music. I used to have an Apple Music subscription and there were a lot of songs that were not available there and I did not like [how] if you queue multiple songs the most recent one plays.”
Along with the increase in price, Spotify is also implementing a new policy on royalty payments in early 2024; this policy states that artists with songs that have under 1,000 streams will not be paid for their music. This is a slippery slope since Spotify’s rates are already significantly below its competitors at $0.003 to $0.005 per stream, whereas Apple Music is set at $0.1 per stream. These artists barely make any money from Spotify to begin with, so the royalty change would not be affecting them much, but the problem lies in the moral principles and the underpayment in general. This policy is an attempt to fix the underpayment problem of established artists, by increasing their royalty pool, since the new royalty model is meant to hinder fraudulent streams and minimize payouts for functional noise content, like white noise. This is a complicated problem since people who put out music on music platforms do it with the intent of spreading their hard work to get recognition and also make a profit from it, so not paying artists for their content is highly insulting. Junior Antonio Quiroz agrees that Spotify’s new policy is unfair.
“Personally, I have not looked into new artists starting out, but I think it is very unfair,” Quiroz said. “People are trying to begin their career and they should be able to make some revenue out of the work they put out in the same way bigger artists do. Since [the royalty] is so low anyway, it makes no sense to not pay them.”
Many of the new features such as Smart Shuffle and Spotify DJ are only present for premium subscribers, making the app much less accessible to free users. With the unpaid version of the app, songs can only be played with advertisements along with many other restrictions. Skipping songs or playing them in a specific order is prohibited, and songs cannot be fast forwarded or repeated. This makes seamlessly enjoying music difficult, especially for students, who use music in their everyday lives to walk to class, or focus while studying. A free account simply isn’t worthwhile as all the useful features are inaccessible. Though Apple Music does not have an option for a free account, it has at least remained consistent in its services and has not advertised as a free platform. Junior Juliana Gregerson appreciates the dependability of the app.
“I like how there have never been any [significant] changes to Apple Music, as the price has always been [the same],” Gregerson said. “The app comes with all [Apple] devices, contacts are findable and there is weekly information, [so ultimately] it is more convenient. There is nothing revolutionary Spotify does that Apple Music does not do better.”
