At some point they need to try to differentiate themselves from Amazon or Apple, who could easily out-spend them on licensing music catalogues.

I think Spotify's "moat" is largely the analysis they've done on all the listening data they have, and their ability to provide that to the music industry as a product.

They share rudimentary summaries with customers via stuff like Wrapped but I have to imagine they have much more detailed and robust data products for the industry...

If they're just a giant Dropbox for MP3s with a music player sitting on top, they don't really stand a chance...