Do they actually take a 30% cut? If they're accounting in that manner, then it's likely that Apple Music is running at a substantial loss, which would constitute predatory pricing under EU competition law.

You have an overly simplified view of Apple Music.

It’s on multiple platforms, it’s tied to Beats, it has a relationship with iTunes Store, there is advertising involved etc. So there could be multiple licensing and revenue sharing deals that mean Apple Music is not running at a loss.

In fact I think it’s likely than you’re wrong.

Does it count as a loss if they’re both taking that loss on iOS users?

Apple does pay artists a much larger cut than Spotify. At e.g. 5000 streams Apple pays the artist ca 37 USD vs the 22 USD that Spotify pays out.

$22*1.30 = $35.1

Interesting, so Spotify could pay nearly the same simply by paying the 30% to artists instead of Apple.

And of course, those 37 might already be partly paid by Spotify anyway.

22*1.3 = 28.6