Spotify vs Apple Music — the decisions that defined it | Stratrix

The decisions that made it

The Money Machine · Business Model

Spotify Was Supposed to Lose to Apple. Then It Stopped Renting Apple's Road.

Apple owns the phone Spotify runs on - the textbook recipe for a slow death. Yet in 2024 Spotify posted its first full-year profit and pushed gross margin to a record 32.2%, while the EU hit Apple with a €1.84B fine for the very toll that was supposed to be its moat.