iTunes once dominated the digital music distribution space. Its advent disrupted traditional music distributors and created a brand-new digital entertainment economy, proving to be one of Apple’s most successful differentiation and engagement strategies. First, they dominated the Mp3 player market with iPods. Next, they leveraged those music features in their smartphones, propelling them to the top of the mobile-device market.

Several years later, Spotify turned the music market on its head again, firmly establishing and soon dominating the music streaming business, eventually undermining iTunes’ download model and forcing Apple and other competitors to join them in the music streaming and subscription race. 

Today, the three largest players in the digital music landscape are Apple Music, Spotify and newcomer Amazon Music. As of March 2020: Spotify had 130 million subscribers, Apple Music had an estimated 70 million and Amazon Music had over 55 million. Although Google’s YouTube Music boasts