Price vs Quality
iCloud is planning to price the iCloud at $24.99 per anum, which makes it a much cheaper option than Spotify’s $5 a month. However, if you are planning on buying more than 5 or 6 tracks a month (and we think the average user will want all the music they can access), then it may not be the cheapest option. There is however the potential that in future, iCloud may position itself free of charge to rival the Google music cloud currently in beta. While Spotify pays musicians for each play (even at small amounts, this is something equating to the number of listens the songs get), but if iCloud and the Google music cloud are free, will this distort the music industry? Time will tell.
Subscription vs Ownership
We have all become very familiar with the concept of downloading and owning music. However, the idea of subscription service for music use is a new one, and it is yet to be seen how much this will take off. We live in a current culture where ownership beats access, but perhaps in the future it is conceivable that access may trump ownership. iCloud with Match is going to limit you to using only the music that you already have in your iTunes Library. Spotify will stream you all of their 1.5 million song library and will allow you to copy files locally.