“Martin, I see it for me. I swear you, this is the future. ” The quote comes from the Netflix series The Playlistwho tells the story of the Spotify design, around 2006. The scene shows a meeting between Swedish internet entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. As a young entrepreneur, EK had already sold some start-ups and smelled a new chance: he wanted to use music to sell, in combination with advertisements. Together with Lorentzon, he built a legal alternative to illegal download sites, with permission from the music industry.
Almost twenty years after the founding of Spotify, Daniel Ek officially gives the daily management off your hands. This week he announced his departure as a top man. Thanks in part to the streaming service of this 42-year-old Swedish entrepreneur, the music industry climbed from a deep, deep valley.
The fact that the streaming revolution began in Scandinavia is due to irreversible exchange networks such as The Pirate Bay and the early rollout of fast fiber optic compounds in countries such as Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Record companies considered the Swedish market lost because they could no longer sell CDs: most consumers still removed their music from the web. That is why the record sector was willing to experiment with a new distribution method in that country: a comprehensive record collection in the cloud.
‘Last fart’
In 2008, after two years of test runs, Spotify started in Sweden and then expanded, Land voor Land. First on the market, Spotify had an advantage over Apple, which had been bitten in paid downloads and only started with a streaming service in 2015.
Listeners responded enthusiastically to Spotify, artists were more difficult to convince. Radiohead singer Thom Yorke compared Spotify In 2013 with “the last fart of a rotting carcass” – giving away music such as the convulsion of the growing music industry. He already saw the mood hanging: record labels gave access to their existing catalog with well -known artists via Spotify and so Spotify became a powerful gatekeeper, a platform that ultimately all musicians and composers can no longer ignore. Even if they disagree with the conditions or policy.
In 2021, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their repertoire from Spotify. With the Boycot they protested against Joe Rogan, the controversial American podcast host who concluded an exclusive contract with Spotify, à $ 250 million. European Championship Didn’t think about it To let Rogan sing a little lower. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young got a bak sail and could already be heard via Spotify after two years. They could not miss access to hundreds of millions of listeners. That’s how the balance of power tilted; Spotify first sold music to people, now it sells people to musicians.
In 2024, Spotify was for the first time. That year it paid 10 billion dollars Out of Royalties, the majority ended up with the great artists. Only 0.6 percent of all artists earn more than per year 10,000 dollars to music streams. According to Spotify, the number of big earners has increased, but compared to competing music services, the Swedish streaming service pays little to the artists per listening. Record companies do benefit from Spotify, because they get the majority of the royalties paid out. That is why the music industry has been growing again since 2015, after decades of contraction.
Bite in Brussels
With playlists and smart recommendation algorithms, EK made Spotify a world hit. It is now the largest European consumer platform (700 million users, of which 276 million pay), despite competition from the music services of Apple, Amazon and Google.
Spotify manages to bite off. Daniel Ek lobbyed in Brussels dedication Against Apple, and partly because of that, the EU forced the iPhone maker to relax the unfavorable conditions of the download store App Store. That is why apps such as Spotify now have to pay a less high committee to Apple.
In the meantime, the Swedish company has a market value of nearly 150 billion dollars, five times as much as during the IPO in 2018. Eks Equity grew to 10 billion dollars And he also became a fame as Spotify himself. When he married the Swedish journalist Sofia Levander ten years ago, it was a showbizing to the Como. A string with a wing November Rain Van Guns n ‘Roses, the American comedian Chris Rock led the ceremony and Bruno Mars was also flown in to sing.
But European Championship often aimed his gaze beyond Spotify. As an avid football fan, he did in 2021 A vain offer On Arsenal, together with football legends Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp. A year later Spotify concluded a multi -year sponsor contract with FC Barcelona.
In recent years, EK has been reducing his activities at Spotify, and he had more time for projects outside the company. In 2021, EK Investment Fund Primamateria started to give European start-ups a chance. But when it became known this year that his fund is also investing in military drones, a number of artists demonstratively withdraw their albums from Spotify.
Ek is not waiting for such a fuss. As a CEO, he was the face of Spotify, in his new role as chairman of the board of directors, he hopes for a role in the background, without having to produce influence.
Spotify refining
Ek does not leave any spread bed for his two successors, Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström. Like all music services, Spotify must also fight against bots that fake streams generate and one overdose AI songs who pollute the offer. Because distinguishing with only music is difficult, Spotify expanded the audio offer to podcasts and audio books – also a way to enforce higher subscription prices. But the competition is growing. Spotify was the killed podcast medium for a long time, now youtube wins young audience With videoodcasts.
The Chinese video service Tiktok appears to be the right way to discover new artists for younger music lovers. Although Tiktok seems to be for the time being noting To start a competitive music service, Spotify is busy approaching and adds moving images to podcasts, shows longer video clips and presents scrollable lists with fragments, à la Tiktok or Instagram Reels. Listeners change into viewers; With music alone you can’t get there anymore. This also realizes the world’s most popular music service.
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