Image: David Lee/Flickr
Beats Music, the Spotify-like streaming music service that debuted in January 2014, will shut down on November 30. The shutdown had been widely expected since the late June launch of Apple Music, Apple's streaming music service that's based on Beats Music.Active Beats Music subscribers have had the option to transfer their subscription to Apple Music since that service's launch in late June. Beats Music subscribers' playlists, song library, and recommendations are transferred over to Apple Music as part of the transition process.This isn't the first time that the DNA underpinning Beats Music has transferred over to a new service.Beats Music was based upon MOG, a subscription music service that first launched in December 2009 (it had been floating around as a music-focused social network for about four years prior), about a year and a half before the US debut of Spotify. The service received rave reviews in the press, with TechCrunch at the time calling it "an absolute joy to use."Critics weren't the only people impressed with MOG.Beats Electronics bought MOG in 2012 for a reported $14 million, with MOG CEO David Hyman telling USA Today that being a part of the "Beats portfolio" would provide music fans with a "truly end-to-end music experience."Two years later, in May 2014, Apple bought Beats, including Beats Electronics and Beats Music, for $3 billion. At the time, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that music "holds a special place without our hearts at Apple." Ian Rogers, who was the CEO of Beats Music when Apple took over, stuck around for about another year before departing for luxury goods maker LVMH in September 2015.Exactly how well Apple Music is doing may be open to interpretation, with Apple saying in October that the service had 6.5 million paying subscribers out of a total 15 million users. Spotify, the service's best known competitor, has 20 million paying subscribers out of a total of 75 million users.Apple launched an Android version of Apple Music earlier this week.
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