Is Apple the reason Maxis cancelled free Spotify Premium?

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Last Friday I received a SMS from maxis, largest telco in Malaysia. They will be cancelling the free Spotify Premium subsidy from next month onwards. This was a perk for those who signed up MaxisOne 98 and above and is one of the reasons I stick with MaxisOne.

In a time when telco are competing to retain clients, its puzzling why maxis would want to do this. The only reason I could think of was that Apple had a hand in this.

Apple need to urgently increase their Apple Music subscriber. They have only 17M world wide paying subscribers vs Spotify's 40M. Now that Apple Music is also available on Android, there is no excuse from the telco not to offer or subsidise Apple Music anymore in Malaysia. Oh yeah, if you don't do it, maxis, maybe you will be the last to launch iPhone 7.

This underhanded way of twisting the telco's arm is not new to Apple. Remember how they twisted AT&T to follow their terms during the initial launch of iPhone 10 years ago? I'm not surprise if Apple is behind this Spotify cancellation.

Well, I will love to go back to Apple Music. I've tried Spotify and I miss the curated playlist. But you can't argue with free Spotify Premium. And if maxis is subsidizing Apple Music, all the better!

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