Unlike the competition, music streaming service Apple Music, which has more than 72 million subscribers worldwide to date, has never offered any kind of free tier and does not plan to do so in the future.
Apple’s global senior director of music publishing, Elena Segal, confirmed this decision during an audience of the British Government’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) on the economics of music streaming.
Elena Segal, Apple’s global senior director of music publishing, during the session. Photo: Parliamentlive.tv
In the parliamentary investigation session, which was also attended by representatives of Spotify and Amazon Music, the executive recognized that “it is a challenge to compete with free. Always has been. It is a challenge to compete on an uneven playing field ”.
“We have been competing with free since the beginning of iTunes in 2003 or 2004 in the UK. And competing with free is always very difficult, because consumers have the option to go free, “he added.
Despite this, he ruled out the possibility of a free plan for Apple Music for two reasons: “We don’t think an ad-supported service can generate enough revenue to support a healthy overall ecosystem. And it would also really go against our core privacy values, ”he said.
Likewise, Segal He said that from Apple they have worked very hard so that their partners get involved in processes “that allow money to flow as well as possible” and that it can reach “the people it is supposed to reach”, alluding to the artists that are part of the platform.
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