Streaming wars between Spotify, Apple, and Google are getting heated.

Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube Music along with a few other players such as Amazon control a huge chunk of the mainstream streaming market. These players aren't merely just existing and serving their customer base – these companies – they are at war with each other with regard to music streaming.

Do note that toward the end of this article, I have my personal preference on which platform to chose alongside a detailed comparison of the same.

Take a look around you whenever you are at a cafe, airport, or the gym. Wherever you are, you will likely see individuals who have earphones plugged in and are looking at their phone. They are streaming music to their device through the power of the internet. As a matter of fact, I am listening to music whilst writing this article as music is something that resonates with an individual more than most other art forms.

It wasn't always a thing like this. I remember the time in which we had to turn on the FM to listen to music to listen to music or download music from online websites which were inspired Napster. My parents remember days in which they solely relied on radio stations, and other music readers like the following:

The record player was extremely popular in the early 60's and 70's

Individuals would literally have to procure a player device of some sort and then alongside that – the album of their favourite band/singer. As you could imagine, this meant that there was a lot of cash involved for the store that sold the following:

*Note, this kind of model is similar to the CD music business.

1. The record player:- The store likely sold a lot of these.

2. Albums:- Individuals would pay money up front to rent/buy albums to listen to.

3. Music Production companies:- They got a huge chunk of cash from the sales of the records. This was big money we are talking about.

The entry of "NAPSTER". The "stage-setter".

The way we listen to music in today's day and age can be attributed to NAPSTER, the company which arguably democratised the group which listens to music.

Just take a look at what people had to say: (adapted from The Guardian: click here to read)

"It's difficult to describe to people... how much material was suddenly available"

"There was no ramp up. There was no transition. It was like that famous shot from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the prehistoric monkey throws a bone in the air and it turns into a spaceship. Napster was a ridiculous leap forward."

Napster was a revolutionary service which allowed individuals to download music from the website in .mp3 format. This meant that anyone could just plug in their hard disk, and kilobyte after kilobyte – download music from the web onto their hard disk for listening.

In addition to the above, this was all free. However, Napster was shut down as production houses were obviously. Later on, when the company's business was legal, it started charging via a subscription model.

This however inspired iTunes to create a hyper affordable way to purchase music from the store – from which apple got a cut from – and them stream using their iPods which were an instant hit with individuals.

Spotify however, realised that they could use the models iTunes had in place and merge napsters unlimited for free model and develop a business which would inspire users to pay to listen to unlimited music. It adopted the Freemium model – meaning it would do this all for free but come with a few plus points – exclusively for premium subscribers.

This is in contrast to Apple Music's paid only music streaming model which makes all users pay for access to apple music.

This is the end of part 1. Part 2 will be published soon and will talk about the different revenue streams for the streaming giants.