What Are Spotify’s Competitive Advantages?

If you’re like me, you’re a longtime user of Spotify and at this point can barely remember the music listening experience before it entered your life. More than a third of music service subscribers have a subscription to Spotify as of second quarter 2021, and the number of subscribers continues to rise. Spotify is widely regarded as the leader in the digital music streaming industry, which is the result of several different competitive advantages that help give it the edge over other services.

Early Arrival To Market

The first and arguably the most important advantage is that Spotify simply “got there” first. Following the decline of Napster, Spotify was the first music company to create a product that understood and delivered what the music-listening community wanted. Napster didn’t attract users because they wanted to steal music or even download it at all, people just wanted an easy way to listen to music for free. Spotify managed to create a new model for the industry where users could listen to music without breaking the law and artists could still get paid. 

Ease Of Use

Spotify also happens to boast one of the easiest-to-use interfaces of any music streaming platform. It’s a snap to search for playlists based on what you’re in the mood for, and the song radio feature instantly delivers a unique playlist curated to the song chosen for the radio. Spotify’s recommendation algorithm is highly praised by the music-listening community as among the best, and plays an integral part in always making relevant suggestions. 

New playlist recommendations are constantly generated and evolve based on users’ listening habits, meaning that the platform’s recommendations only improve the more it is used. Finding your next favorite song or artist is one of the most rewarding parts of music discovery, something that Spotify enables more than any other service. This is also a very useful feature for music creators because they will get more organic Spotify playlist plays.

On top of that, Spotify excels at being easy to access no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Along with the usual home computer/mobile access, Spotify interfaces with devices such as speakers, smart TVs, Amazon Echo, and Chromecast, among others. With one of the largest song libraries among top streaming services, Spotify gives its users access to virtually anything they want to listen to in nearly any everyday situation.

Unique Features

In terms of price, Spotify’s paid subscription tier costs about the same as the rest of the field, but they do offer an ad-supported free option. While Spotify isn’t the only service in town with a free tier, the fact that it offers one at all gives it the upper hand over paid-only competitors like Apple Music. 

Another important advantage is that podcasts are available for listening as well as music, including the current most popular podcast in the U.S., The Joe Rogan Experience. This matters because not only does Spotify give users access to top podcasts, but they’re the only platform that offers them at all. If Spotify continues to expand their content beyond just music, it could propel them even further than other digital service providers.

Users of Apple products who prefer perfect integration might be attracted to Apple Music, and bargain hunters with an Amazon Prime account might gravitate toward either of Amazon’s music services. But if you’re simply looking for a way to conveniently listen to your favorite artists or maybe even discover new ones, Spotify delivers the best bang for the buck. These competitive advantages make Spotify very popular for everyday users and this makes it better for music creators to upload music and gain followers on the platform. Spotify is definitely the number one choice for music creators to share their music and earn money.