Idk im not sure why they bought Beats aside from marketing hype in the first place...

For Apple Music

Beats is a $1B+ a year business. Investment-wise it was a no-brainer.

Cultural cachet of Beats - note how Apple kept the brand.

Jimmy Iovine & Dr Dre showed them how to tap into a new demographic.

It helped Apple get up and running with streaming faster, they needed to compete with Spotify.

The Beats brand was a great entrée to an entire market segment that Apple was trying to better access. I'd say it was a masterful acquisition (and integration).

I completely disagree.

Beats brand basically disappeared after that or at the least has become "uncool".

Apple had iTunes already, they very well could've acqui-hired and improved their service themselves.

Apple music slowly died and is only becoming resurgent now, many years later.

Beats (or I guess Apple under the Beats name) still make H1/2 based in-ears that are generally well received.

Yep! I own both a pair of AirPods and a pair of Beats. The Beats were designed for a lower price point, without noise cancellation, than the AirPods so I can’t offer a head-head comparison.