Music is something most students listen to daily. It is a way for students to concentrate while also making some situations not awkward. There are many different music apps but two of the most well-known are Apple Music and Spotify.
Spotify is a free streaming service available to anyone for free since 2011 with ads. There is also an ad-free option called Spotify Premium, which costs $11.99 per month. Apple Music is a streaming service starting in 2015. It costs $10.99 per month with both streaming services, having student discounts for 18 years old and older while in college.
Central students filled out a survey about which app they prefer and why.
Spotify won 18 out of 28 votes with most votes preferring Spotify as it is free to use. “I think Spotify has a bigger library of music and recommends a lot and better music than apple,” one student said.
Another main reason students prefer Spotify is because it has been around for so long and they have gotten too used to it. “Started using Spotify but have used it for so long that switching to another platform would be too difficult to do easily,” another student said.
Three Eagles were willing to go more in depth into their responses. Those students being senior Nathaniel Segovia, junior Isabella smith and junior Deisy Cisneros-Mondragon.
Smith is a Spotify user and has been one for the past five years. She has 102,780 minutes on Spotify with Spotify Premium. “I know people who do use Apple Music and really like it, but I feel like I see more people talk about Spotify, like in media and stuff,” Smith said.
Cisneros is also a Spotify user with 47,096 minutes but uses the free version and has no complaints. “Right now, Spotify has upgraded. Before, you couldn’t, just pick a song you wanted to, but now you can pick any song you want to play,” Cisneros said.
Spotify is constantly upgrading more for the students who are using it for free gathering more students’ votes.
However, Segovia is an Apple Music user leading to the other side. He has 105 minutes on Apple Music and 63,097 minutes on Spotify. He switched to Apple Music last month and doesn’t regret it. “I’d obviously Apple Music to win because from the times I would use Spotify, it was such a hassle to deal with, and it was so annoying, especially since I like to upload my own music,” Segovia said.
Segovia is someone who likes to upload his music from his own device and Apple Music made it easier. “So, to add more, I had around 63,000 hours on Spotify, and by a mile, I prefer Apple Music. It would take me, like, genuinely, around 30 minutes just to sync my library from my computer to my phone. But whenever I would upload music on Apple Music, I could just drag whatever album or song,” Segovia said.
One of the main reasons some students use Apple Music is because of the lack of ads. One ad in particular that is making students change their mind is how Spotify allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ads.
“I can play any type of music without getting restricted, and it doesn’t show ads promoting ICE,” one student said.
When Spotify users were asked, most weren’t aware of this issue as they are premium users.
“I prefer Spotify due to its free trials of premium and the expensive music selection, but I’m looking to switch due to their political stances and usage of artificial intelligence,” one student said.
Currently Spotify is the most popular among students with 64% of students using it. But due to changing factors in Spotify, that might just change in the near future.
