Beats One was supposed to be a differentiator for Beats before it was acquired (I worked on it). The point was that it would be unique content you couldn't get

Beats One was supposed to be a differentiator for Beats before it was acquired (I worked on it). The point was that it would be unique content you couldn't get from a commodity streaming service, and the hosts would bring an existing fanbase. My impression is post-acquisiton Apple figured their brand would be sufficient to differentiate them, so they kind of stopped caring about the very high-touch work involved in curated radio. I think at this point it makes sense to view Apple Music as "commodity music streaming but it's apple, so it's preloaded, etc."