Spotify is less vulnerable to customer churn compared to TV/movie streaming services, as users are less likely to switch music streaming providers due to the hassle of rebuilding playlists and losing personalized recommendations.

AOL profited for over a decade on people who signed up for the service and simply lost track of it, paying month after month for something they’d forgotten they even had.

Crazy that these services can just raise premiums whenever they please without even reaffirming that the customer still wants the service. I guarantee that if you needed to re-verify your account on a price increase, firms with big client pools would never raise their rates again.

Tidal pays multiple times more than Apple.

On paper. But in practice…

On February 27, 2016, Yesh Music, LLC and John Emanuele from the band The American Dollar launched a $5 million class-action lawsuit that claimed Tidal had to compensate the band for any of the royalty payments accrued from the streaming of the band’s 116 copyrighted songs. The suit also accused Tidal of using faulty numbers to payout artists while also having undercut these same individuals by 35%. A response from Tidal stated that they were indeed fully up to date on all royalties for the group and had removed said intellectual property from their servers.

Hollywood accounting and pirate profiteering undercut what artists would normally be paid.

You can influence things with your wallet.

You can influence how you feel about your consumer habits, but capitalists are still going to capitalize.