It’s 6.4% per month, which is three times that of Spotify.

And the hardest thing is to get people to resubscribe, it’s like getting back together with an old love, you kicked the tires, you had some fun, but overall it just wasn’t worth it, you’re looking for something better.

If you’re looking for something at all.

This is a music industry problem. The theory was that when Apple entered streaming it would burgeon and all problems would be solved. But it turns out people are tuning out. What now? Will they go to Spotify? Not right away. Because I’d posit a great number of Apple Music users signed up because of the ecosystem, they were Apple acolytes, they were entranced to check Apple Music out. They’re not hard core music fans, and what they found was not enough to make them stick around. Turns out a me-too service with a bad user interface is just not that appealing.

So what will bring them back?

Certainly not exclusives. This is a false canard. Exclusives are about cannibalization, drawing Apple Music users from Spotify, theoretically anyway. What is the special sauce that will resuscitate Apple Music?

It doesn’t exist, they blew it.

The mistakes were so many.

1. First mover advantage. As in Apple didn’t have it. When Apple was late to the game with iTunes and then the iPod there was no dominant jukebox software and no dominant MP3 player. Furthermore, iTunes was EASIER to use and the iPod was too, as well as transferring files at a high rate of speed, i.e. via FireWire. What was the Apple Music breakthrough? Hand-curated playlists? Which some found inferior? Spotify toppled Rhapsody because of the free tier, because of higher functionality, the songs started right away and you could fast-forward and reverse easily. Spotify had a huge beachhead. Being Apple was not enough to triumph.

2. Usability. It’s hobbled Twitter, which is similar to Apple Music in that people tried it out, were confused, and didn’t come back. Navigation was near impossible. Supposedly the UI is now better, but you have to pay to check it out, most have already used up their free trial, they’re happy at Spotify or not subscribing to any service, why would they come back? It’s like buying a lousy car, an old Fiat, a Yugo, and then hearing they’ve fixed the problems and you should come back, but you don’t.

3. Too much functionality. Putting files and streams in the same app is like putting word processing and spreadsheets in the same app. Imagine every time you opened Excel you got a Word document. And then you couldn’t find your Excel files. This is what using Apple Music is like.

4. Broken upon launch. Really, you released an unfinished, bug-ridden product in an era where we expect everything to work right out of the box, both our flat screens and apps, in an era where there are no instructions and there is no tech help? That’s just too much.

5. Jimmy and Dre. Stars are for entertainment, worker bees are for tech. The software is the star, not the creator, and in this case Jimmy and Dre were just front people, no one believed they could code, never mind navigate more than a browser. Sure, we know Zuckerberg and Bezos, but they earned their stripes, and they don’t brag about how rich they are, and they’re not about hobnobbing, but the work. Apple Music should be a functional product, not a creative one, and Jimmy and Dre and Trent Reznor have no experience in functionality, only hype.

6. Not an underdog. That’s right, we like our upstarts, especially in tech. Apple Music was launched as a holier-than-thou product by a self-satisfied crew and the sneezers who spread the word on new tech wanted nothing to do with it.

So how does Apple Music get on the right track?

By establishing a free tier. That’s it’s only solution. It can’t compete with Spotify without it. People need to be able to experience changes and improvements, otherwise they’re never gonna switch. And the free tier should never expire. Because unlike free HBO weekends content is not the draw, functionality should be. You can’t win via exclusives, they just piss people off. If Spotify can win without Taylor Swift and Adele, it can continue to succeed without the stars Apple Music might align. And the truth is stars hate exclusives, they only do it for the money. They’re fan unfriendly, and they leave too many people out of the loop, and in an era where it’s hard to reach everybody, you don’t want to leave out anybody.

And there needs to be integration with messaging, so people can share tracks. Messaging is key in today’s world, and Apple’s got a huge head start with iMessage, but it’s a walled garden, you can’t play if you’re on Android. But if you are on a competing platform you’ve got WhatsApp, and in China WeChat dominates. Apple needs to open iMessage for the opportunity to lock people into their ecosystem with new products, like Apple Music. Otherwise, it’s a death march, the iPhone won’t dominate forever, to the degree it dominates at all, because handsets have become a commodity.

And there needs to be a focus on the hard core user, it’s they who spread the word. With a churn rate like this Apple Music has too many looky-loos, and they don’t build a business.

As for innovation… There are a lot of new ideas, talent contests, earning placement on the homepage, but this would depend upon Apple’s brass looking down, into the pit, to those coming up, as opposed to hanging with the fat cats, leaving the public out. Didn’t Jimmy get the Brexit memo, that elites are abhorred? And out of touch too?

This is like digital cameras folks. As a matter of fact, 2016 is the year. Remember when we kept hearing that digital was gonna replace film and it didn’t happen? And then, after a decade, it did, film died overnight. Files are dying and streaming is now going through the roof. And we know that one enterprise dominates online, one app or site has 70% of the market. Right now, that appears to be Spotify. Which has a head start, but is not perfect. Its look and feel are not its strong points. Apple could have made headway here, but it issued a half-baked product instead. Kind of like with the Watch, but at least that was a breakthrough compared to what was already in the field. And they’re fixing the Watch. But convincing people to buy one, even more, convincing those who returned one to buy another? That’s extremely difficult. Kind of like getting people to return to Apple Music.

“Apple Music has one big weakness in its fight against Spotify”

History is being rewritten. The seventies are now seen as the advent of the blockbuster era, the decade that launched “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” which changed the paradigm forever, to not only high concept fare purveyed during the summer months, but high grosses too. If you’re not swinging for the fences today, you’re not in the game at all.

But it didn’t used to be that way.

It didn’t used to be that the Third Street Promenade was the epicenter of entertainment. As a matter of fact, Santa Monica was sleepy, all the traffic was east of the 405, walk down the Promenade and you might encounter tumbleweeds on your way to the $2 movie, no, all the action was in Westwood, just south of UCLA, where you could not get a parking spot and all the films opened.

Let’s see, how many movie theatres were there in Westwood?

Well, there were the Manns and the UAs and the… Nine edifices and more screens. And the Mack Daddy was the National, you entered on floor one but then ascended to floor two, where the seats poured down to a giant screen. That was the number one theatre in Los Angeles, possibly the world. But it no longer exists. It was torn down, L.A. is constantly reinventing itself, and for those of us who remember those days…we cannot forget when Westwood ruled and the movies did too, when the idea of lining up an hour before just to see the latest Brian De Palma flick was a common event. Movies were our lifeblood. Punk came along and put a dent in corporate rock, new wave too, but the movies didn’t waver, they paid dividends right up until…

“Heaven’s Gate.”

Now the focus has been on how that flick killed United Artists, but it goes unsaid that after that flop the artists lost control, the studios took the power back. And sure, Spielberg got his own way, but he was never one of the auteurs, I’ll even argue he’s a hack. He sold entertainment, slick stuff, whereas the greats from that era, their work had edges, it touched our souls.

Let’s start with “The Last Picture Show.” Peter Bogdanovich’s masterpiece. Dark and in parts unseemly, with a naked Cybill Shepherd to boot, watching that flick made you want to go to Texas, because it was so different, unlike the suburbs where I grew up, the movies were a window into an alternative universe.

And you can say “Paper Moon” was more mainstream, but really, creating a Dust Bowl flick in black and white? No one likes to leave any money on the table anymore, they fear alienating part of the audience, they won’t take risks, which is why the movies have faltered.

Oh, I know… You’re going to point to the small flick that floats your boat, the record that penetrates your brain, but what you don’t realize is back then the HITS did this. There was an experimental marginal fringe, but the best and the brightest were given free rein and told stories we just could not get enough of.

Like “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot,” where Jeff Bridges lit up the screen and jump-started a career. Shot in Big Sky country, you marveled at the world created, you had no idea who Michael Cimino was, but you knew the flick was good.

And we did know who the directors were, they were stars often bigger than the actors. Like Francis Ford Coppola. Not only is the “Godfather” saga probably the best movie ever made, Coppola continued to test limits and I went at noon to the Cinerama Dome to see an unspooling of “Apocalypse Now” months before it opened wide, it too played for a week, just like the “Deer Hunter.”

“Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” might have gotten little respect, but the buzz on the “Deer Hunter” was deafening. This was before DeNiro was a star, most people had never heard of Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken was an unknown, but the rap was the flick affected you emotionally, it wasn’t a thrill ride but a saga. Funny how the humanity’s been sapped out of art, it’s all sheen, but back then character was as important as plot, and when you saw the “Deer Hunter”…

We did, my girlfriend and me, at the National, where it played for Oscar qualification, tickets were sold in advance. It was during law school finals but it was an unmissable event. We had no idea what to expect, but after seeing it we could not sleep, it affected us so much, the same way you drove home in silence after seeing your favorite band live, you were numb, you wanted to wallow in the experience.

So, we were all waiting for “Heaven’s Gate.”

Which is not as bad as they say it is, the legend eclipsed reality, before the film even opened. Kind of like the new “Ghostbusters,” which is already considered a flop. The truth is everything great triumphs after that much hype and notoriety, and if the female “Ghostbusters” is good the online brouhaha will be forgotten. But it probably isn’t, so it’ll stiff. Like “Heaven’s Gate,” which was just not good enough.

It’d be one thing if Michael Cimino made another movie right away. But he became a pariah and then a recluse, a bombastic self-righteous jerk who no one wanted anything to do with.

But the interesting thing is he was there at the apotheosis and the death. “Deer Hunter” was a long movie before three hour running times were de rigueur, it was all his vision, there was no source material, nothing to hook us other than word of mouth, the lunatics had taken over the asylum, the directors ruled. And then, after “Heaven’s Gate,” it was a return to what once was, light fare, only this time with a huge focus on hoovering up dollars.

And it’s only gotten worse. Entertainment was always a business, but other than in TV, the most mindless of media in the sixties, today entertainment is solely about the bottom line. We revere those who make the money, executives are king, everything’s gone topsy-turvy.

Michael Cimino died. After removing himself from the dialogue, after having so much plastic surgery he became unrecognizable. We don’t know whether he had that much self-hatred or was transitioning, right now we don’t even know why he died, but we do know he’s a footnote, known for bankrupting a studio and nothing more.

But studios were built on the backs of artists. And whether it be Quentin Tarantino rescuing the Weinsteins or… The spoils still come from the artists, those who are hated by the suits, because their genius can’t be quantified, you can’t put the odds of success in a spreadsheet, you’ve just got to trust them, these oddballs who wouldn’t fit in anywhere else but can hold the whole world in thrall.

Michael Cimino didn’t make that many movies. But he was more than a one hit wonder. And instead of being decried, he should be lauded. He was a highly educated guy who wanted to make films as opposed to money, he didn’t go to Wall Street, make an irrelevant app. He didn’t want to compromise, he wanted his vision on screen, he was in pursuit of greatness, which we rarely see anymore, despite all the protestations from Kanye and the rest that they’re pushing the envelope.

He was from a different era. When art ruled. When no one lived in a gated community. When the movie people flew first class, not private. When we not only saw the movies, but talked about them, endlessly. When people not only knew who acted and directed, but edited and shot too.

We’ll return to those days, when we give artists more rope, when we venerate them to the point the best and the brightest will leave money on the table to enact their vision. When society changes its values, when we realize it’s all about us as opposed to them.

BuzzAngle MidYear Report

In other words, Spotify, et al, beat YouTube, et al. There were 114,226,566,336 audio streams and 95,172,077,123 video streams. Last year there were 54,961,808,648 audio streams and 77,297,473,064 video streams. Audio streams increased by 107.8% and video streams by 23.1%.

But the music industry is still fighting the last war. Focusing on YouTube and the supposed “value gap” when the truth is consumers have moved on to Spotify and Apple Music…because of convenience, because of the social element, that’s where their friends are, because of playlists, because video is a lousy way to listen to music.

I’m not saying that What-A-Mole should not be eliminated, that one takedown notice shouldn’t be enough. I’m just saying that after nearly two decades the music industry and its adherents have not figured out the future, they’re still stuck in the past, somewhere they want to return to which we’ll never inhabit again.

Music on YouTube was a way station. A gap-filler. Spotify wouldn’t launch in the U.S. before all the major labels were on board, which they weren’t for years, as a result YouTube satisfied the demand. But music on YouTube will fade out. Forget about it. The goal of the music industry should be to get everybody paying for Spotify, Apple Music, et al. Instead, the musicians are bitching, saying what people want, Spotify, et al, is junk, and YouTube is the problem. Huh?

We need a free tier, on demand online access, to eviscerate that is to sign your death warrant. Some people will never pay, some are just casual users, don’t leave them out, make them into fans. And believe me, most acts want free on demand, the same way they all paid indie promotion fees in the last century. Without them, you’re nowhere.

But it turns out active users will pay for music. Because not only are they fans, they love the convenience! And if you don’t know that free Spotify is hobbled on the mobile handset, you haven’t used it. But that wouldn’t be new, most people pontificating have never gotten down into the pit to see what’s really going on. You can’t pick and choose on the handset. And the handset dominates, to focus on the desktop is to be left behind, like YouTube, which is a crummy music service on the mobile device.

This is how it always works. People will pay for utility, for convenience and features. Are you really gonna give up your Discover Weekly playlist? Are you really gonna give up being able to hear every track extant and share it easily with a co-subscriber? It’s about lock-in. YouTube has done a horrible, essentially a nonexistent job, with audio lock-in. So it is being passed by. Not hard to understand, since no one there seemed to understand music and be passionate about it.

But they are music believers at Spotify and Apple Music. And the listeners can FEEL this, they want to belong, and this is a good thing!

As for getting paid…

Let’s work on increasing the publisher’s share, which is tough, because it’s gonna come from the label’s share.

And let’s glorify these services, encourage everybody to sign up, not via exclusives on Tidal, but via functionality. Exclusives hurt growth, they cause anger, they muddy the waters, but then again, the music industry can’t get out of its own way, can’t do what’s right for the customer, it’s inured to fighting for an edge, an advantage, making short term money and forgoing the long.

So bitching about YouTube payments is like bitching about desktop computers. They’re both in the rearview mirror.

Don’t fight the last war, look to the future.

And the great thing about Spotify, et al, is even at this late date most people don’t know how they work, they don’t know you can sync tracks for offline use. There’s a lot of highway in front of us, let’s drive down it!

P.S. Scroll down in the report and you’ll see that pop wins. Don’t argue with the facts. The reason you’re not making as much is they don’t want what you’re recording.

P.P.S. Vinyl is for oldsters, for niche. Except for Adele and twenty one pilots, the top ten is dominated by the aged and the deceased. Investing in vinyl is like placing your future in the hands of septuagenarians. Vinyl is a gnat on the ass of streaming. It’s a souvenir. Sell it if you can, but don’t rely on it.

P.P.P.S. Rock is dying. It’s dwarfed by pop, hip-hop and R&B. Rock split into so many sub-genres, many of which are derivative, that it lost touch with the public. Wanna succeed in rock? First and foremost write a hit, something undeniable that crosses over. You don’t get to create a sixty minute album without hooks and expect to get paid beaucoup bucks in the streaming world. Now, more than ever, you lead with the hit.

I blame Reagan. And then Bill Clinton put a stake in the heart of the middle class, all in an effort to save his job.

The right wing intelligentsia lauded Reagan’s “accomplishments” to the point where they cannot be challenged. In a disinformation campaign they slapped highways and buildings with Reagan’s name, as if that would cement their hold on the public consciousness. And the left wing intelligentsia pointed to the economic run-up during Clinton’s reign as evidence of his “accomplishments.”

And in the process our country became bifurcated, the land of haves and have-nots.

And this has all come home to roost with the ascension of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Sanders has faded because Hillary was reasonable, whereas the Donald’s competitors were all paying fealty to an elite that had lost touch with the rank and file. However, Hillary’s beliefs are in question, which means that…

Trump could win in the end. Because he’s preaching revolution, whereas Clinton wants more of the same. And that same is not working for so many inhabitants of this great country of ours.

It’s not about immigration.

It’s about jobs. Give someone a good job, allow them to not only pay their bills, but prosper, and they’ll embrace change, because it’s working for them. But change hasn’t worked for the lower class, the middle class, for decades, so they’re ready to revolt.

And it’s laughable that Democrats are attacking Trump, they just don’t get it, the way to win is by appealing to Trump’s voters, his constituency, those ignored by the Republican party for far too long as it satiated fat cats, moneyed interests, while ignoring Joe Public.

But Bill Clinton played to these same movers and shakers. And the left wing intelligentsia stood by as unions were eviscerated, education funds were slashed and tax advantages were given to the rich and powerful. The Democrats were like Britain, or France, in the run-up to World War II… They could see what the Republicans were up to but they were reeling in the wake of Reagan and the Bushes, the right wing takeover of the debate on Fox News and talk radio, and wanted to cocoon as opposed to fight battles, losing all the while.

Germany and Italy were in dire straits after World War I. What did Hitler and Mussolini do? Give the public jobs! Building infrastructure, putting food on the plate and currency in the pocket. Obama refused to ask for more stimulus money, listening too long to Larry Summers, and the Republicans felt there should be pain, that you needed to earn success, knowing nothing about economics, talking about the imminent rise of interest rates when they fell and stayed low to the point where if you have money in the bank you’re falling behind.

Both parties lost touch with their constituencies. The little people, who make this country work.

Mark Zuckerberg does not make this country work. Neither does Lloyd Blankfein. You need people to not only do jobs, but to consume, to put money into the system, but in the veneration of the fat cats anybody working for a living wage is viewed as a chump, their only option of getting ahead being the lottery or reality TV.

And you wonder why our country is in trouble.

Hillary may lose to Trump because her message is unclear. Four more years of the same? That’s not what the disadvantaged want. As for Trump’s insane economic policies, trade barriers and the renegotiation of debts, speaking to the idiocy of these elements misses the point, he’s saying he’s gonna fix the problem, whereas the Democrats just say to be afraid of him. Huh?

Manufacturing isn’t coming back to America. Running to the left on this is missing the point. People need to be given jobs, retrained for today’s work force, earn a living wage.

And sure, some of Trump’s followers may decry the safety net, because they’re working so hard and are not sacrificing. You know who isn’t sacrificing? Wall Street. Hedge funders who pay capital gains rates on ordinary income. Trump’s followers do want Social Security, they do want health care, but they want to believe their interests are acknowledged, that they have a seat at the table, and right now they don’t.

Everybody’s making fun of them. Listen to the holier-than-thou left wing, from Hillary to the “New York Times” on down. Telling people they’re stupid for supporting Trump. But maybe they’re smart, maybe they’re sick and tired of being paid lip service when they end up with nothing.

The game is rigged. And when it is, you turn over the table. And that’s Trump’s play, not Hillary’s, and you wonder why he’s got traction. Who cares if George Will abandons the party, the party abandoned the voters years ago. And this happened on the left too, I’d like some of that Hillary speech money.

We’re going down a bad path folks. The people in Washington have achieved their goal, which is to have us fighting amongst ourselves and missing out on the real issues, the primary benefits. Whether it be online hate or anti-immigrant sentiment, the have-nots are hating those they have access to. Hell, you can’t even shake Justin Bieber’s hand after the concert anymore, reach and have influence on your Congressperson, those do-nothings earning a paycheck far in excess of what they deserve, with a Cadillac health plan to boot? Throw the bums out. That’s what the Trump defenders want. That’s what the Bernie followers desire. Instead, they’re told to lay down their arms and get in line… Who exactly does that appeal to?

America is all about opportunity, that’s the essence of its dream. And that opportunity has not only been squandered, it’s been decimated. Trump says he wants to make America great again and what his followers hear is a return to prosperity.

And you’re laughing at all of them.

When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. Which is why the disadvantaged took the UK out of the EU and their across the ocean brethren are agitating for Trump.

A change has got to come.

What kind of bizarre world do we live in where you overpay for college, unable to discharge the debt in bankruptcy, solely to get in line for a job. That’s the dirty little secret of higher education, it’s not about learning, it’s about getting a leg up. And at the elite colleges making relationships, establishing a network that the rank and file can never penetrate.

So know two hundred plus years after the founding of our country we’ve hit a crossroads, it is not business as usual, we cannot secede from the world, we cannot go backward.

But we can come together, we can unlock the gates and let everybody in.

We can hug our brothers and sisters and lend them a hand.

The only way out of this is through unity.

And if Hillary wants to win, she’s got to start bringing people together.

Otherwise, the Democrats are going to discover the mob rules.

And they’re not in control of it.

Happy Holiday.