Apple Music claims it’s ‘home of Neil Young’ after Spotify loses legendary songwriter

Image: Apple Music / The Verge

Neil Young pulled his music from the platform after falling out with it over its hosting of misinformation. Apple Music is trying to get Neil Young and his fans to sign up for its service, and it is sending out a lot of notifications.

It is a bit of theatrical silliness. Neil Young is a legendary writer, but his presence or absence won't decide the fate of this or that streaming platform. He's not like Taylor Swift. Instead, Apple is following the corporate tradition of putting itself into a relevant news cycle while the going is good.

The company has not been subtle about it. It put a list of Young's music at the front of the section called "We Love Neil."

Differences between the streamers are highlighted by the spat. In a piece unpacking the decision to keep Rogan over Young, The Verge'sAshley Carman pointed out that the decision to keep Rogan over Young was part of a wider plan to diversify its content. Apple Music presents itself as more of a pure music sell than it actually is.

While this market triangulation continues, the market share of Spotify has been decreasing. According to recent data from Midia Research, Apple Music was the second most popular music streaming service with 15 percent of the market, but it had a 33 percent market share in 2020.

It shows that the company's lead is not secured forever, even though the absolute number of subscribers grew.