✳flâneur — a map of the web's best reading

Can Apple change ads? — Benedict Evans

ben-evans.com · 2,662 words · saved by 1 readers

20 years ago Apple seized music, and turned it into a lever for its broader business. It failed to do the same to TV, and lost control of music, but won massively in games, where it now makes more money than the entire global digital music industry. Now, perhaps, it’s looking at advertising.

Can Apple change ads? Once upon a time, Apple was the iPod company. iPods were a much bigger deal than the Mac, and they also made Apple a dominant force in the music industry. Then, as we all know, Apple jumped horse to the iPhone, which was a vastly bigger business again. But meanwhile, music switched from the download-to-own model pioneered by Apple to subscription streaming, and Apple was very late to streaming. Today it has an adequate, me-too streaming music product, but it’s far from setting the agenda. Apple doesn’t matter much in music anymore. However, the switch to streaming also me

Explore this link on the map →

related reading