[poulsbohemian]

He's completely right about Apple Music and it's been bad since long before iOS 13. The navigation is incredibly difficult to understand. I get very frustrated about why I have to both tell Apple I love something and put it in my library before their algorithms are smart enough to figure out that maybe I like that band / song and they should find related music. The Spotify discovery algorithms are better in every way.

So why even bother with Apple Music - it's really simple and it's why I see Apple services being huge... you get an Apple card and its cash back will pay your Apple Music and Apple TV+ and Apple News+ bill every month. Why pay for another music service when Apple Music is "good enough" and is "free" at that point?

[dangus]

That doesn’t make sense, the cash back could just be cash. It doesn’t make those services magically free.

[poulsbohemian]

Except there's a cycle - you get 3% back on Apple purchases. Notice I said "free" with air quotes - sure, you are spending money, but you are also being rewarded for staying in the Apple walled garden. So back to my point - why pay $9-$15/mo for Spotify when if you play the game, Apple has a "good enough" product and is incentivizing you monetarily to the point that their services become "included" rather than a separate line item in your monthly budget. Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but to a wide swath in middle America it does.

[dangus]

That still doesn’t make sense. You could use the cash back on a Spotify subscription just the same.

The Apple Card’s credit card rewards aren’t even that good compared to what other large banks offer (e.g. the Citi Double Cash card).

[ulfw]

Exactly. You can use CASH back for any further credit card purchase, including a Spotify subscription for that matter. Wouldn't call Spotify "free" though.