Apple

Apple Music, but not for any reason. Just because I use Apple devices and I’ve never given it any thought.

As others have mentioned, I’ve not had an issue with the Apple recommendations, especially when it comes to “stations” - I think it does a good job of recommending similar artists, and I like it (but I’ve not used Spotify so don’t know if they’re better at it, or what better might look like).

Just a reminder, Apple’s Lossless tech doesn’t work over Bluetooth (that’s a Bluetooth limitation not an Apple limitation) so if for example your regular speakers are connected via Bluetooth then Apple’s Lossless isn’t a good reason to move services since you won’t experience it most the time anyway.

I would factor your primary device into your choice. I mostly control music via my iPhone, and the iOS music app is fine for that. Apple Music is… not ideal… on Mac, and if I used that as my primary controller I suspect I’d shop around for a better service. As an example of two baffling things that irritate me:

1. Playlists are listed in a different order on Mac compared to iOS. There is no reason for this except that Apple is careless.
2. Mac Apple Music sometimes throws a tantrum after e.g. a Zoom meeting and will refuse to produce any audio until you’ve closed and reopened the app. It does it with YouTube as well (e.g. you pause music to play a video, but when you unpause the music afterwards it won’t play). It’s erratic and has been reported elsewhere and is annoying.

VLC and Spotify.

I'm poor, and prefer going with a free service, it's just as good as the radio.

VLC I've found to be less clunky than the iTunes/Apple Music sync pipeline, and when I had my older iPad, it was a convenient media hub for things that might not be natively supported by iOS' default player.

I used Spotify before but canceled the premium subscription as it became expensive. I'm now listening to Deezer's free tier.

ViMusic lol

My partner and I may be the only people on earth using Tidal, but I love it!

The main benefit is that it pays artists like double what the next highest per-stream rate is (I think that’s Apple Music).

The Tidal app is basically Spotify but without podcasts shoved in your eyes. It has personal mixes, daily discovery, new music you might enjoy, etc. All that useful discovery stuff.

I’m mostly on Spotify but there is at least one radio show (Beats In Space) that I use Apple Music for since it’s exclusive to that platform. I do like listening to mixes by some of the artists/label that I love as they offer the track list as well.

I use Spotify simply because my FiL had an extra spot on the family plan. If that weren't the case, I'd probably be trying one of the Apple bundles. I'm actually quite happy with Spotify, but I'm curious what Apple Music's native integration would feel like.

Spotify Premium.

Spotify Connect alone is worth the choice between the two services, in my opinion.

Besides, Spotify doesn’t require you to update your OS in order to update the app.

Spotify. I've been using them for years. I see no reason to switch to another service and start all over again

I’m a producer and have a slightly different relationship with these platforms than the average consumer.

Apple Music SUCKS promoting my music and gets way less listeners than Spotify by a lot. The comparison is not even close.

The lack of reach with Apple Music when I go look at my metrics compared to Spotify is really sad. So for that reason alone I choose Spotify over all of the other platforms.