{"id":104982,"date":"2025-06-23T15:25:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/?p=104982"},"modified":"2025-06-23T15:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:25:31","slug":"apple-music-head-its-crazy-that-music-is-offered-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/apple-music-head-its-crazy-that-music-is-offered-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Music head: “It’s crazy that music is offered free”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Image credit: Auguras Pipiras<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple Music’s Global Head, Oliver Schusser has made it clear that he’s anti-ads in music streaming with a thinly veiled hit at competitors.<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Apple Music<\/a>‘s biggest rival, Spotify<\/a>, has built a global lead in the music streaming landscape and a large part of their momentum has been powered by an ad-supported tier. Spotify’s free to access, ad-supported music streaming offering is offered as a springboard for new users to try streaming before upgrading to go ad-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Apple Music’s Global Head has hit out against ad-supported streaming. Oliver Schusser said: “It’s crazy that 20 years on, music is still offered free. We’re the only service that doesn’t have a free service. That’s not because of the money or anything. As a company, we look at music as art and we would never want to give away art for free. It just makes no sense to me.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On launch, Apple Music originally planned not to pay artists for streams made during free trials of their platform. Those plans were reneged upon, however since launch Apple Music have offered free trials of their service. Music playback isn’t interrupted by adverts on the free trial, and presumably streams are paid out on the same rate as paying users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With 675 million monthly active users on Spotify<\/a> and 263 million premium subscribers<\/a>, the majority of Spotify users are still ad-suppoted listeners. As the biggest music streaming service in the world and a direct rival to Apple Music, Schusser’s words are a blatant hit against Spotify and what he deems an old fashioned model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless, Spotify paid a record $10 billion to the music industry in 2024<\/a>. That amounts to the largest payout any music retailer has ever paid into the music industry in just one year. So, whilst a lot of that will come from Premium payments a significant portion likely also comes from ad-supported streaming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spotify paid a record $10 billion to the industry last year<\/a><\/blockquote>