Apple CEO Tim Cook has been speaking about his thoughts on the growth and changes in the online music industry.
Quoted in an interview about Spotify and the state of play in the global online music service industry, he gave his thoughts about music and more importantly for Apple Music, the importance of human influence on playlists.
He said: “Music inspires, it motivates. I couldn’t make it through a workout without music. It’s also the thing at night that helps quiet me. I think it’s better than any medicine”.
“Humanity being drained out of music”
Without mentioning any service or competitor by name Cook underlines Apple’s concern about the future of online music and the increasingly pervasive influence of algorithms. He continues: “We worry about the humanity being drained out of music, about it becominn a bits-and-bytes kind of world instead of the art and craft”.
Apple Music debuted in 2015 and was already the market leader in the download era of digital music. It purchased Beats by Dre for £3 billion in 2014 and has over 50 million Apple Music subscribers and trial customers across a base of 1.3 billion devices.
“Not in it for the money”
While Spotify has yet to make a profit and has incurred losses of $1.7 billion so far, Apple has $14 billion in profit from the second quarter of 2018 alone. Cook can rightly claim about Apple Music “We’re not in it for the money”.