By Chloe Patel, Brianna Deasy, and Allison Millette

Staff Writers

Have you ever had an argument about which streaming service is the best? Which is more beneficial? Cost effective? Accessible? The Rebellion surveyed 300 students and faculty members at Walpole High to find out their preferences about streaming services. A small percent of the people who took the survey use other music outlets such as SoundCloud, Amazon Prime, or Pandora, but the majority of the people use either Spotify or Apple Music. Below are the results of what the survey revealed about each service as well as research The Rebellion has conducted about Apple Music and Spotify.

Spotify

Out of the people who took the survey, 68% believe that Spotify is the better streaming service for different reasons. Spotify offers individualized playlists–playlists that are created daily and each one is unique–which can be found under “Your Daily Mix” in the Spotify app or on the online web browser. They also include new music not included in users' library, that you may like according to music users may already have. This feature allows for listeners to broaden their music selection and discover new artists.

Spotify allows for listeners to ‘follow’ artists they enjoy and find upcoming concerts in their area, tailored to their music preferences, which is not an available feature of Apple Music. Spotify requires an internet connection to listen, but premium users are able to download their music selection for use offline.

“I prefer Spotify because you can follow others playlists and share music preferences with your friends. I also enjoy the social media aspect as well as the playlist aspect,” junior Kendra Sheehan .

‘Free’ Spotify users, have more restrictions than those who pay for premium. Listeners have ads between their songs, and although they can create playlists they are only able to listen to them on shuffle. There are also a limited amount of skips, 6 per hour, and the download function is not available for users who do not pay for premium.

“I believe Spotify is better because there are fewer ads and you can pick your own music on a computer,” junior Shamari Sykes said.

Spotify allows users to play music on any computer and customize playlists for later convenience. Spotify is available on any computer.

“All my friends had Spotify and loved it so I downloaded it,” junior Grace Mello said. “I didn’t get premium for a while after I started using it and at first I liked how it was free.”

Due to the overwhelming popularity of Spotify, many people in the survey said that their choice in streaming service was influenced by that of their friends and family

Apple Music

At Walpole High School, 17% of the students and faculty think that Apple Music is the better option for streaming music. However, this service has more to offer. While both services have a wide variety of music, Apple Music has around 10 million more songs than Spotify’s 30 million. Apple Music is a streaming service, similarly to Spotify, but users also have access to the iTunes library.

“I think Apple Music is a much better choice because you have access to the entire iTunes library, so you can still download music that is not included on other streaming services,” sophomore Owen Cooke said.

Another feature of Apple Music is that users can listen to music offline; however you must download songs, which takes up space. Although created by the same company, Apple Music is seperate from iTunes.

“I don’t have Spotify premium so I use Apple Music to listen to songs when I don’t have WiFi so I don’t use up my data,” sophomore Emily Tomasetti said.

A unique feature offered by Apple Music is that it creates specialized playlists that you can choose to listen to for various moods. For example, Apple Music creates playlists for when you feel sad, happy, romantic, or even motivated.

“My favorite part of Apple Music is the playlists that they create for different moods,” sophomore Jillian Schmottlach said.

Pricewise, Apple Music and Spotify are the same price for a one user subscription, but Apple Music is the cheaper option for family packages. Where Spotify can cost up to $24.99 for a family package, Apple Music’s maximum price for a family package is $14.99. After receiving the survey results, it is evident that many are unaware that Apple Music offers most of the same features as Spotify as well as some of its own, leading to fewer Apple Music users.

Overall

Spotify was released October 2008, and Apple Music was started in June 2015. Due to how long Spotify has been available, it has been able to expand and reach a wider audience and in the process, gain popularity. Apple Music is relatively new and only had a few years to become successful, so many are still unaware of all that it offers. The Walpole High School community prefers Spotify; however, Apple Music has more user-friendly features. Overall, each streaming services has its own benefits within its features.