I never felt like my goal as a user was in alignment with Spotify's goals as a company and a product.

While I want to enjoy a personal connection and a sense of discovery and ownership with music, Spotify wants to control my process of music discovery. For example, by pointing me to a new music playlist — which they can conveniently populate according to their deals with labels — instead of providing me with a complete list of newly-released albums from the artists they know I like.

Meanwhile, Apple Music really does seem like a straightforward deal I've been very happy with: a decent and complete service for music fans, for a reasonable price. No free option, no ads, no tacked-on podcasts (which, frankly, is a completely different media consumption experience than music and should never occupy the same space on any product), no pushing me to any specific part of their service. There are Smart Playlists, Synced Lyrics, deep library organization tools if I want, a straightforward new releases section, editorial content with interviews and track by track commentary by the artists on many albums, playlists editorialized by knowledgeable human specialists on every niche of music that I can use to discover new artists when I want to... I feel free.