> while Apple Music reached all-time highs in both listenership and new subscribers.
I'm assuming listenership is total subscribers.
It doesn't need to be "astounding". But it is significant, given the competition from Spotify and YouTube and other streaming services. When you're not the most popular service, it's genuinely a challenge to be on the growing side of things rather than the shrinking side or stagnant side.
It's as if Apple Music was a monopoly giving it's the default music application same as Internet Explorer was the default browser. I'll bet Apple Music is so integrated into the OS that it would be impossible to remove.
See my cousin comment, not a monopoly by market share, not even close. Spotify is the market leader.
There are no alternative Settings apps. But you can certainly use Spotify like I do and many others.
What does it being bundled with a bundle you chose to subscribe to have to do with anything? You can subscribe to iCloud without Apple Music if you want. It's cheaper.
I think it's just a bit of an obscure way of saying total subscribers. "${verb}ership" like "readership" meaning the number of subscribers + casual readers of a magazine [0], or "viewership" meaning a TV show's total viewers/ratings [1]
I don't think I've ever heard listenership in that same context though, so they might have just made that up. haha
If it is "The year in which people that use Apple Music used more Apple Music than in the years before" than it does not sound astounding.