Apple | Music Biz Outsider Report

When Beats bought MOG in 2012, that beloved-but-undersubscribed music service had 500 thousand subscribers. Six months after Apple bought Beats, touting their stream service as ‘the future of music’ — at the end of 2014 — Beats was down to just 303 thousand subscribers.

We’d like to think Apple’s remake will reverse fortunes like it reversed the dorky gamer-black Beats UI for a ‘gleaming’ white v-bezel — but for some reason known only to those on iOlympus, Apple put the very same people responsible for Beats Music’s dismal product and worse sales in charge of the iTunes/Apple Music reincarnation.

Interesting times.

Wired‘s breathless coverage (they do love them their Apple) gets the main points — and has a certain, not unamusing announcing-sliced-bread sort of vibe…

WIRED: Everything You Need to Know About Apple Music

I was a subscriber to the old MOG stream service when Beats bought them, starved them for support (supposedly down to 3 support people for an estimated 300K subscribers toward the end) and then scuttled them and brought out their own, mega-hyped Beats Music. Which I thought was UTTERLY AWFUL. [Been a stream subscriber for about a decade; did not just fall off virtual turnip truck.]

When Apple bought Beats, I figured the purchase had to be about the bassy, glow in the dark wildly overpriced ‘fashion’ headphones. But Apple’s top brass kept GOING ON about how Beats Music was the future and would lead Apple into the future… Dr Dre, Jimmy Iovine, Trent Reznor [Remember him? No, seriously, do you?] were going to lead the way for Apple.

I was FLABBERGASTED.

So, it’s almost a year and a half after Beats Music blasted onto the scene, ready to revolutionize the stream industry and take away Spotify’s 15 million paid subscribers…

How’s the revolution going?

Beats Music has… [wait for it] …

300,000 subscribers…

No. Seriously. Same as MOG had when Beats bought them and put them in the ground. The current Beats subscriber count is according to USA Today’s coverage of Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference