I’d guess that paying pm a few hundred thousand compared to increasing royalties by a single penny would pale in insignificance

Of course. My point is that the app was “complete” a long time along yet they add more and more unnecessary features.

It's a conundrum, because stagnation is also not good. Shareholders expect results.

It is. The major music streaming players all have pretty much "everything" except niche stuff. (Spotify tried to differentiate with podcasts but it's probably fair to say that was fairly unsuccessful--or even a net negative for some.) And how much can you twiddle with the interface in ways that don't, on net, piss off at least some of your user base? And I would guess that pretty much everyone who is in the addressable market for music streaming at current market rates that are maybe breakeven with a tailwind already have it. (Which probably not coincidentally are in the ballpark of what people paid for music pre-streaming.)

For apotify it's not even share holders anymore. They need to figure out how to survive at all. It's either flail their arms in a desperate attempt or just give in like jack on the titanic.

i disagree. Some of the new features are welcome imo. for ex: daylist and now searches can find songs by lyrics

Searching is a core experience I agree. So is being able to organize/discover music.

There is still so much crap that isn’t core to the music experience.