Spotify and Apple Music. Both are extremely popular music streaming services that function on a similar basis of pay-to access, granting the entire world of music for a monthly price. There’s been a significant increase in discussion about the two streaming services, given the Spotify Wrapped and Apple Replay. Both of these streaming services have obvious benefits to them, being in demand access to music anytime, online or offline. But in light of recent controversies surrounding Spotify, it may be worth another inspection. What truly is the most effective music streaming service? 

From a purely monetary perspective, Spotify draws in more money at around 16.1 billion dollars per year, compared to Apple Music’s yearly revenue of approximately 4 billion, annually. Both companies operate on an annual subscription basis that charges the consumer monthly. A one year subscription to Apple Music costs about $109 dollars. A one year subscription to Spotify costs about $99

A rather overlooked topic in the digital music age is the treatment of artists. With any song available with just the touch of a screen, the common opinion is that digital streaming has only done positive things for musicians and their craft. But some outlying issues suggest that the opposite is true. Spotify and Apple are corporations, through and through. It’s in their best interest to make money, and they have streamlined their business model to do just that- damaging the artist in the process. 

A data pool collected by Forbes states that both Streaming services do business with record labels, not artists themselves. An independent artist can still use Spotify to publish their music using third party sites like Distrokid, but this method has infinitely less payout, because third party publishers cost money, and can’t do business with the streaming service. 

After all is said and done with the record label, Forbes estimates that a licensed music artist on Spotify will make about $0.0007 per stream. That means that The Weeknd has made around $240,000 off of his hit single Blinding Lights, a song that has been streamed more than 3 billion times. This means that a song with 1 million streams, has only made about 700 dollars for a licensed, major label music artist.

As for Apple Music, their margin is exponentially better, as they cut a lower percentage with record labels. On average, an artist will make 1 cent per stream. This means that 1 million streams on Apple Music will accrue about $10,000, as opposed to Spotify’s much lower rate. 

To summarize: Apple Music is much better for the artist than Spotify. But there is an even better alternative platform to both services.

Bandcamp is a fan-run, independent music platform that allows artists to publish audio files of their music directly to the site with no cost. Consumers can buy albums and songs directly from artists, with very little kickback to the actual platform. Bandcamp also has no algorithm, which allows you to seek out artists at your leisure. 

Bandcamp is undoubtedly the future of independent music and allows the underground scene to flourish, regardless of current trends. For this reason alone, it deserves mention above Spotify or Apple Music.