I suspect it was always intended as a speaker system for Apple Music rather than an Echo home assistant device. To be honest, my Echo sounds like crap when playing music, no real competion there. And TBH again, Alexa is pretty dumb at present. Bottom line is that these home assistant devices being produced by various companies are designed to sell that company's digital content. Even if Amazon allows the Echo to play Spotify, Pandora, and other music services, they still try to sell you music, audio books, and anything that is sold on Amazon.com. Apple is doing the same except their emphasis is on selling Apple Music. I personally wouldn't call Siri crap. It is at least as good as Alexa.