By Lexi Lane
Mobile music apps became a huge asset in 2015, allowing listeners to stream their favorite songs anytime, anywhere. With the recent boom, many companies have released their own music sharing platforms including Pandora, iHeart Radio, and Soundcloud. However, the two “big dogs” of the industry are Spotify and Apple Music.
First off, Apple Music offers a three-month free trial where people can listen to any songs and even download them to their phones. Unless they are willing to pay a fee of $15 for another month just to listen to music, when that subscription ends, it erases all the music they have saved while on trial, and they are forced to resort back to regular iTunes.
On the other hand, Spotify has two versions, premium and free. With the premium version, customers pay $10 a month- five less than Apple Music’s price- to listen to any song on cue. Although Spotify doesn’t offer free trials, consumers can purchase three months of premium for 99 cents and student discounts are available to acknowledge college students looking to listen to music on a budget .
The perks that come with the free version of Spotify are plentiful. People can listen to any song on the app, but it puts the album or playlist you choose to listen to on shuffle. However, the computer version of Spotify Free allows listeners to stream any song off of shuffle, something Apple Music fails to deliver.
Many big time artists have pulled their music from Spotify completely, including Adele’s ‘25’ or when Taylor Swift was the first to make the switch and only make it available for purchase on iTunes or stream on Apple Music. Whether it be for lack of compensation for the artist while on Spotify or an attempt to boost album sales, one thing that’s certain is that these leading ladies in the music industry won’t be the only ones to leave, but is it really fair to have to pay to listen to your favorite songs? Of course not.
In fact, streaming has become larger and more popular than buying the actual songs that when an artist’s music is played on a platform like Spotify, it actually boosts album sales and plays even more.
On the Spotify Artists page of their website, they explain in full detail how they pay artists that people listen to for free daily, and how they make money as a company also. They have paid about three billion dollars since they first began, and an unprecedented 300 million in the first three months of 2015 alone.
