So What: While industry contracts might seem a bit too much inside baseball, the fact that Apple has been able to come to terms with labels for massively popular artists like Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Adele, and more, just means that you’ll be able to listen to them for a lot longer. As MacRumors points out, competitor Spotify has had trouble recently renewing their own rights to music, so this could give Apple a clear advantage over time. Conflicting numbers: Some sources put Apple Music on top of the paid subscriber heap, while others point to Spotify having more subscribers and listens overall. Both services need to retain their large catalogs of popular music to keep members paying their monthly dues. Bottom line: It’s unlikely that Spotify won’t ink their own deals with all the major labels in the months to come, but Apple’s ability to work with these large media companies is definitely one of its strengths in the streaming music wars.
