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Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

Not enough people talking about this: The fundamental challenge for Spotify is they have to make money while Apple Music doesn't.

Apple Music can run break-even as a platform feature, like the App Store was (at least in the early days). Or they could pay artists more with that margin and get more exclusives. Either way, it's a fundamental long term competitive disadvantage for Spotify.

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I know it’s just an acecdote, but I don’t know a single person that uses Apple Music. Spotify already has a huge library and mindshare. It was too little too late for Apple IMO

Which is why you should never draw conclusions from anecdotes.[1]

[1] Apple Music is set to surpass Spotify in paid US subscribers this summer https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/4/16971436/apple-music-surpa...

Most of these users are converting from their shrinking iTunes business.

So what’s your point? Apple Music is still overtaking Spotify this year. And just like iTunes, they don’t need to make much money on it.

Only in the US, Spotify is huge in Europe and other parts of the world, where Apple Music is basically unknown.

Spotify is actually small in the world. All music service subscribers combined are a mere ~110 million.

Eddy Cue recent pegged the market opportunity at 2 billion.[1]

And Apple Music ramping the fastest.[2]

[1] https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-music-hits-38-million-subscr...

[2] https://twitter.com/asymco/status/973568200616050688?ref_src...

Comparing Spotify to other streaming services, obviously.

Apple music is basically a no-show in Europe and Asia.

And those numbers are only paid subs. Spotify has a ton of free, ad-listening users.

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