Today is Spotify Wrapped day, a day when everyone freaks out about Spotify confirming they like artists they already knew they liked.
I mostly mean that as a joke. In actuality, any day where people get excited about sharing the music they like is a fun day in my book. That being said, Spotify Wrapped day is genuinely a really hard day if you're an Apple Music user, not because we don't get to participate, but because everyone assumes it's a really hard day to be an Apple Music user and insists on giving you their sympathies, and that can just get irritating after awhile.
I think most Spotify users look incredulously at Apple Music and marvel at how some people could ever choose that service. But I've used both Apple Music and Spotify, and for a number of reasons I actually prefer Apple Music. I'm not going to say it's the "better service," and in fact I think neither is differentiated enough to really claim itself as the objectively "better service." But there are a number of things about Apple Music that closer align with the way I like to consume music that Spotify doesn't do as well. Specifically, Apple Music has...
Better library management. Spotify is fundamentally designed around the playlist. Everything about the Spotify UI is centered around driving people towards playlists, and that's fine for people who really love playlists. But I don't. I think much more in terms of a music library. Playlists often feel very casual while a music library feels like something you have much greater ownership over, like you're saying, "This is all the music that I have given my stamp of approval on and that is really valuable to me." Apple Music, much like iTunes and record collections before it, is fundamentally designed around this idea of a music library, and that feels more natural to me.
Exclusive live content with amazing music personalities. Apple Music's live content is one of its most obvious differentiators at this point, and it's something I would really miss if I switched to Spotify. Zane Lowe has been one of my favorite voices in music for years, and seeing his exclusive radio shows and music recs and interviews pop up throughout the platform is really cool. Matt Wilkinson has turned me onto a number of new artists and songs that I may never have found otherwise. Seeing artists like Elton John and Ezra Koenig really lean into their Apple Music radio shows gives such an interesting glimpse into the minds and interests of those artists. When Apple announced Apple Music in 2015, it was framed as a music platform that would give fans a much more intimate glimpse into their favorite artists, and I think the radio shows do a great job of accomplishing this.
A cleaner UI. Everyone always prefers the UI they're used to rather than the UI unfamiliar to them, but I always found the Spotify UI a bit cluttered and dense. Spotify feels much more like a musical playground where you're encouraged to click around and explore a bunch of different pathways through the app, though it's unclear what the quality on each of these pathways is. Apple Music sends you in fewer directions, but the quality of those directions seems to be higher, and I prefer that method.
Lossless audio with baseline subscription. Let's remember, the main goal of a streaming service is to play music really well. And Apple Music supporting lossless audio for all subscribers means it does play music really really well. This also puts Apple a step in front of Spotify, who will reportedly be launching a lossless service shortly for $19.99.
Integration with other Apple products. It's no secret that once you buy a single Apple product, you end up buying one or two more, and eventually you're locked inside the walled garden for good and you're not leaving. Thankfully, the integration with Apple services like Siri and Messages is really strong, which is a big plus.
A better history with paying artists. Apple Music pays artists roughly $0.0073 per stream while Spotify pays artists $0.0043 per stream. This wouldn't be my sole reason in picking one service over the other, but it's certainly a big win for Apple Music.
A viable future. May I remind you that Spotify still isn't making money? Has that been mentioned? Spotify probably has a wide-enough user base of paying customers that they could become profitable if they were to stop reinvesting in the business, but nevertheless, I don't really want to support a music service that pays too little to artists and yet still can't find a way to make a dime on their own.
Now, there are certainly some things that I think Spotify has over Apple Music, those being the robust social features and collaborative playlists that Spotify offers. From a community standpoint, I think Spotify definitely takes the cake. But I actively chose Apple Music over Spotify for the reasons listed above, and until enough of those get cannibalized, I won't have any desire to change.
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