Spotify vs Apple Music vs Youtube Music
- #musicstreaming
- 4 Feb 2023
I have been a subscriber to music streaming services for years so I thought it my by useful to share my experience with all of them.
Princing is not mentioned as it varies dramatically from one country to another.
Spotify 🥈
I have been a subscriber for over 10 years and I can certainly say that it has a lot of advantages:
Pros:
- **Simplicity**: Spotify is very easy to use, navigation and interface is very user friendly;
- **Duo Subscription:** easy to share with a family member or a loved one. There is also a family option but the duo is cheaper and sufficient in some cases;
- **Discovery weekly** just listening to your existing music is yesterday. Today, a good streaming service means a good discovery service where you can discover new songs to add to your playlists. In this regard Spotify was generally very good. I say was because lately I wasn't really getting high quality suggestions as I did in the past. This might have to do with my declined usage or algorythm deterioration 😅
Cons:
- No videos
- Discovery not as good as it used to be
- Audio quality is very high but not lossless as in Apple Music
Ranking: 🥈
Apple Music
I have been an Apple Music user for probably the very beginning, 18+ years ago. This was before there was a subscription system in place and this is how things get a bit complicated.
If you bought songs before the streaming system you still find them in you library and, overall, makes the experience pretty confusing.
Pros:
- **Audio Quality**: with a lot of songs in lossless quality look no further for the best in terms of audio quality.
- **Integration**: If you are an Apple user Apple Music is very well integrated with all devices (Apple TV, Apple Watch, iPhone, Mac etc.) which could be a big plus
Cons:
- **User Interface** : Somehow I found the user interface to be less clean than Spotify and Youtube Music. It has certainly improved and is difficult to pin point what I dislike but one big plus
is that I don't seem to see a simple way to like a song with 👍 or ❤️ and find it automatically in a separate playlist (not just in the media library). I also don't think the "dislike" song does anything.
- **Confusing if you bought songs** beside the fact that you probably wasted your money if you did 😅 (OK for me it was long ago, but today you have no reason to "buy" songs which is anyway not really like
buying them) I found the songs persistently appearing in the library together with the streamed songs confusing.
Ranking: 🥉
Youtube Music 📺🥇
For years I resisted the idea to buy a Youtube premium subscription. I didn't watch youtube that much but, lately, I enjoy watching some videos and on Apple TV the advertising is just too much.
I subscribed and I think it was worth every penny! As a free add-on to Youtube premium you also get..Youtube Music. Well, this is just fantastic because it has something no other service has: music videos!!
If like me you are part of the MTV generation you know what it means. The magic to see and listen to music videos is just unbeatable.
Pros:
- **Videos** Yes! I love music videos and if you listen to music via Apple TV or TV you will "see" a huge difference. Gone are the boring album photos: you can enjoy music videos! Not all songs have one but many do.
- **User Interface** Simple, fresh and smart. Just 👍 a song and find it in its dedicated playlist. Perfect.
- **Free