We’ll be comparing four services here: the new Tidal, the elder statesman of music streaming Pandora, Apple-owned Beats Music, and the current leader in streaming music, Spotify.
Is Streaming Right For You?
First of all, streaming music may not be for you at all. If you have a very limited data plan, or commonly find yourself in areas with low/no reception, it’s possible that streaming isn’t a good fit. It also depends where you are: Beats is US-only and Pandora is only available in the US, Australia, and New Zealand, but Spotify and Tidal are in a lot of countries. If you aren’t worried about blowing through data, and you have reliable reception, then read on.
Cost
Both Pandora and Spotify offer free versions, with limited skips per hour, ads, and the occasional pause to make sure you’re still listening. Removing the ads and skip limitations will cost you. Spotify is USD$9.99 per month at “regular” price. If multiple family members want to sign up, the first account is $9.99 and up to five additional accounts are $4.99 each. Beats offers no free tier, just $9.99/mo or $99.99/year for one person, up to three devices. On Pandora One (the paid version), it’s $4.99/mo or $54.89 yearly. Tidal is either $9.99/mo for Premium, or $19.99/mo for “Hi-Fi”, which is lossless streaming.
Customization
Pandora and Spotify both allow you to tailor an existing “station” to your taste, with thumb up and down powering the suggestions for the songs you get. You can also spin off a new unique station you can share with others, based on genre or artist or even song. Spotify takes this one step further, allowing for creation of playlists within the Spotify player that include both your local music and music from Spotify, and paid Spotify plans allow access to that music from other devices. Beats offers curated content, and the option for offline listening. Tidal and Beats offer both curated playlists and the option to create your own, and include an offline option.
Caution
Things to remember about all these services: If you cancel your subscription you no longer have access to that music (which shouldn’t need stating, but it is in the help for every single service). Any artist can pull their music from any service at any time. Much like the constantly shifting sands of Netflix, an artist can pick up and leave seemingly at will, so if you only signed up for a service because it had every single track by the Statler Brothers (including that European dance remix of Flowers on the Wall) and a decision is made to pull all the Statler Brothers music from that service, you are just going to have to find a way to live without it.
A lot like alternate television options, the content can widely vary, but it might not make sense to subscribe to all services just in case. So you might want to look at what you (and your household) want to have access to, and where, and hopefully be able to find the one that works best for you.