Makes you wish for functional public capital markets so we knew the real story.

A good chunk of those 50m aren't paying $10/mo; they've expanded their partnerships (in part) to inflate that number.

Interestingly Apple did a similar thing with Telstra (the largest, formerly state owned carrier), with a year free on 1 year contracts.

That has now become more of a free trial sort of deal though: https://www.telstra.com.au/applemusic

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cheriehu/2017/02/13/spotify-new...

Conversely, the "daily mix" playlists seem to be utter crap for me.

I don't understand. The 'My New Music Mix' feature is exactly the same as Discover Weekly. It presents you a weekly playlist of music you don't know yet but might like based on your listening patterns. I've used both extensively (I have subscriptions to Apple Music and Spotify) and they do the same thing (although obviously with different algorithms).

Would be nice to try, but it is restricted for me.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/02/13/apple-music-subscribers-past-...

This goes for traditional news orgs as well.

Yes, it happens often. Journalists get paid with scoops, etc (aka in the industry as "access") and that buys some favorable pieces and a sympathetic ear on the other side.

Here's an example (there are countless others from all parties and from tons of companies): http://gawker.com/this-is-how-hillary-clinton-gets-the-cover...

>Ergo - every decent news story amounts to 'bribery'?

Where did you came with this weirdo conclusion?

Bribing a journalist/media with scoops if something that happens, not something that ALWAYS happen -- so it doesn't apply to "every decent news story".

For one, not every scoop has been leaked to the outlet breaking it by the company/organization that the scoop is about.

>I think you bit your tongue on that one.

No, he really didn't.

George Orwell's "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations" is the best filter to apply in these situations.