What is the world’s best streaming service?

The music industry has changed drastically over the last decade, with listeners switching away from physical albums and moving towards digital copies. This shift has completely changed the face of the consumer market and has lead to the need for artists to shift their marketing. This is also one of the reasons that artists now rely on live performances and tours for an income when in the past an artist could flourish from album sales alone. One of the biggest changes to the music industry was the introduction of streaming platforms, completely revolutionizing the consummation of music. With the increased popularity of these platforms, the market keeps expanding to include more and more streaming services. We’ve taken a look at each service individually and weighed up the pros and cons of each platform to establish which one is the biggest hit with consumers.

Spotify

Dominating the market with 157 million users, Spotify is leading the way in the streaming industry. Having only been in operation for 11 years, the growth of the platform is truly staggering but is evidence of Spotify’s huge influence in the music industry. With a user-friendly interface, both on the desktop site and on the various smartphone apps, the effortless usage of the service is definitely one of the major factors drawing so many users. Spotify is also abundant with unique playlists, offering a huge selection of music for any mood, and tapping into the need for a playlist to suit any scenario, e.g. in the office, at a party, or in the gym. Another one of Spotify’s main selling points is the feature that allows users to download music for the purpose of listening to it once disconnected from the Internet. This is one of the most important features of Spotify, as it completely revolutionized consumer views on streaming, and made streaming accessible even without Internet. Although in the past some artists have expressed anger at Spotify’s royalty policy, most songs can be found on the platform, over 30 million in total. The platform will also track your favorite artists and add any new releases to your release radar playlist.

Apple Music

The second favorite music streaming service is Apple Music. While not as popular as Spotify, the platform does have plenty of unique advantages. As the service is owned by Apple, it is better suited to all Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads and Macbooks. Like Spotify, Apple Music also allows users to download songs for later, but Apple allows for many more downloads. Spotify caps downloads at 9,999, but Apple has the ability to store a staggering 100,000 songs. Another huge plus of using the platform is Beats 1 radio, which runs 24 hours and features a number of high-profile stars. While Apple Music struggles to reach the same number of users as Spotify, this could be partially down to the fact that Apple Music was only launched three years ago, making the growth of the platform truly unbelievable in such a short time.

Pandora

Featuring a huge 40 million tracks, Pandora boasts an even bigger music library than industry giant Spotify. Basing user preference on thumbs up or thumbs down ratings, the platform has algorithms that are quickly able to establish a user’s taste. The perfect tool for those who prefer to sit back and discover fresh music rather than curating their own playlists, Pandora is ideal for hitting play and letting the algorithms do the work. Having been set up in 2000, Pandora is one of the earliest streaming platforms and was part of a revolutionary movement towards streaming in the music industry.

Soundcloud

Having originally been set up as a free service, in 2016 Soundcloud announced its new subscription service, which removed ads and allowed users to listen to content offline. With 120 million tracks, Soundcloud boasts one of the biggest music libraries in the world. A place for discovering new music by unknown names, the platform is ideal for producers starting out who need to showcase their music to the world, but have not yet signed to a label. While Soundcloud’s offering is unique and attracts a huge number of users (200 million), the company has had financial issues and has struggled to keep afloat over recent years.

Tidal

The main quality of Tidal is the 24-bit audio resolution, allowing listeners to experience their favorite tracks like never before. However, the platform does have many drawbacks, including its distinctly smaller music library and lack of discovery options. Much of the criticism around Tidal is due to the platform making several high-profile artists exclusive, driving users of other services back to pirate sites, drastically damaging the music industry. The platform has faced a lot of criticism over the years, but still remains one of the industry’s top streaming services.

While each of the individual streaming services has advantages and disadvantages, it is clear that Spotify and Apple Music are the best on the market. The two platforms should definitely be prioritized by artists as ideal platforms for their music, but Soundcloud should also be a huge priority, as it is ideal for producers who are just starting out. Naturally, the ideal scenario is to release music on every single streaming service available in order to achieve the most revenue and exposure, but Spotify and Apple Music should definitely remain the highest priority for artists.