The HiFi Dilemma: How Apple Music Can Beat Spotify
Apple is doubling down on audio quality while Spotify lags farther behind
Competition in the business world is a funny thing. In business, the prevailing thought is to be ruthless, to have the end goal of absolute market share. You want a prospective customer to only think of your product when making their next purchase. When an executive at Coca-Cola thinks about a customer walking into a 7–11 to buy a soda they want their company to be in a position where that person chooses Coke over Pepsi every single time. But what makes business in America and elsewhere fascinating is competition.
It is the spectacle of companies outdueling one another to outdo the other all in pursuit of that almighty market share. This dynamic happens in consumer tech as well and has been a most interesting development in the world of streaming music services. Spotify has led this industry for quite a few years but has seen increased competition from Google, Apple, and Amazon in recent years. The Swedish company has been able to navigate the storm relatively unscathed but it appears that a push for high fidelity audio tiers could spell trouble for Spotify.