Spotify Wikipedia

In 2008, just after launch, the company made a loss of 31.8 million Swedish kronor (US$4.4 million). The company reported that the tier conditions may change before its full launch. The subscription costs $0.99 and is supposed to be a combination of the free and premium tiers.

Direct public offering

It combines short-form podcast news updates from The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and PRI with a mix of a user's favorite songs and artists interspersed with tracks the listener has yet to discover. In 2016, Spotify introduced its Daily Mix feature, which creates playlists of music that a user has previously listened to on the platform.In 2017, Spotify introduced RapCaviar, a hip-hop playlist. In August 2016, Spotify launched Release Radar, a personalized playlist that allows users to stay up-to-date on new music released by the artists they listen to the most.

Dispute with Kakao Entertainment Corp.

• In September 2018, Spotify announced “Upload Beta”, allowing artists to upload directly to the platform instead of going through a distributor or record label.
• This feature allows two or more Premium users in the same location to share control over the music that is being played.
• In February 2010, Spotify received a small investment from Founders Fund, where board member Sean Parker was recruited to assist Spotify in “winning the labels over in the world’s largest music market”.
• In February 2009, Spotify opened public registration for the free service tier in the United Kingdom.
• In 2016, Spotify was criticized for allegedly making certain artists’ music harder to find than others, as these artists would release their music to the rival streaming service Apple Music before releasing it to Spotify.

Spotify has been criticised by artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that Spotify does not fairly compensate musicians, and both withdrew their music from the service. However, there has been some concern about the music streaming platform's social media features. Before May 2020, all service users were limited to 10,000 songs in their library, after which they would receive an "Epic collection, friend" notification and would not be able to save more music to their library. Also in January 2019, Spotify beta-tested its Canvas feature, where artists or labels can upload looping 3 to 8-second moving visuals to their tracks, replacing album covers in the "Now Playing" view; users have the option to turn off this feature. The features were announced by CEO Daniel Ek at a press conference, with Ek saying that a common user complaint about the service was that "Spotify is great when you know what music you want to listen to, but not when you don't".

Premium-exclusive albums

• In October 2017, Microsoft announced that it would be ending its Groove Music streaming service by December, with all music from users transferring to Spotify as part of a new partnership.
• In November 2021, Spotify hid the “shuffle” button for albums following a request by singer Adele, arguing that tracks in albums are supposed to be played back in the order specified by the artist to “tell a story”.
• He explained, “An extension of the internet radio craze of the early 2000s, Spotify would license content from record labels, and then support artists as people listened to their music.”
• “Follow” lets users follow artists and friends to see what they are listening to, while “Discover” directs users to new releases as well as music, review, and concert recommendations based on listening history.
• On October 6, 2025, Spotify announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring music and podcast recommendations inside ChatGPT, allowing Spotify users to discover and queue new music through conversations, rather than search.
• According to Ek, the company’s title was initially misheard from a name shouted by Lorentzon.
• This eligibility rule only applies to royalties for sound recordings, not musical compositions.

Of that amount, about 58.5% of its total revenue goes to the owners of sound recording copyrights, and the other 12% goes to the owners of musical compositions. In playjohnny casino registration December 2013, the company launched a new website, "Spotify for Artists", explaining its business model and revenue data. There was no provision regarding worker ownership of content created, one of the initial demands. In February 2020, Spotify announced it was acquiring The Ringer, and inheriting the previously established union. One month after Spotify acquired Gimlet Media in February 2019, 75% of staff at Gimlet Media went public, signing union cards and seeking voluntary recognition.

Accounts and subscriptions

Spotify provides access to over 100 million songs, 5 million podcasts, and 4 billion playlists. In Spotify's apps, music can be browsed or searched for via various parameters, such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Unlike the apps, the web player does not have the ability to download music for offline listening. The standalone app was made available to all iOS and Android users in the United States since 4 June 2019. On 31 January 2018, Spotify started testing a new Pandora-styled standalone app called Stations by Spotify for Australian Android users.

This was followed in May 2017 with the acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Niland, which uses technology to improve personalisation and recommendation features for users. In April 2017, they acquired Mediachain, a blockchain startup that had been developing a decentralized database system for managing attribution, and other metadata for media. In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific's team would lead an advanced analytics unit within the company, focused on developing data services.

The tool allows users to generate personalized playlists from text prompts describing genres, moods, artists, activities, or creative ideas like animals, movie characters, colors, or emojis. Discovery Mode allows artists who meet certain criteria and have a Spotify For Artists account to submit qualifying songs for Spotify's in-house promotion services. In 2023, Spotify launched additional features to help independent artists distributing their music on the platform reach a wider array of potential fans. This feature allows two or more Premium users in the same location to share control over the music that is being played.
In May 2018, Spotify attracted criticism for its "Hate Content & Hateful Conduct policy" that removed the music of R. The free service tier has led to a variety of major album releases being delayed or withdrawn from the service. Worldwide, 30,000 musicians have joined the organization UnionOfMusicians (UMAW). Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it temporarily closed its office in Russia and indefinitely suspended all of its services in the country. The company is incorporated in Luxembourg as Spotify Technology S.A., and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in 16 countries around the world. Among them is an increased lack of non-online social spaces, an increased lack of privacy from strangers, and a source of unbridled expression particularly with its media-related podcasts.
In March 2016, Spotify launched six playlists branded as Fresh Finds, including the main playlist and Fire Emoji, Basement, Hiptronix, Six Strings, and Cyclone (hip-hop, electronic, pop, guitar-driven, and experimental music respectively). In September 2025, Lossless audio, which allows Spotify users to listen to songs in very high quality, became available through Spotify premium. Months later, Spotify tested its own version of stories (the sharing format popularized by social apps) known as "Storyline", and the focus is on allowing artists to share their own insights, inspiration, details about their creative process or other meanings behind the music. A camera icon in the apps' search fields lets other users point their device's camera at the code, which takes them to the same content. In January 2016, Spotify and music annotation service Genius formed a partnership, bringing annotation information from Genius into infocards presented while songs are playing in Spotify.
If a song is "loved", a custom radio channel will be created based on it, and when there are at least 15 of these songs, a "My Favourites" channel is unlocked. At launch, the skipping feature was not featured to "reinforce the feel of radio", but it was quietly added later and with no limits. In October 2017, Spotify launched "Rise", a program aimed at promoting emerging artists. Additional features include the ability to get "verified" status with a blue checkmark on an artist's profile, receiving artist support from Spotify, customising the profile page with photos and promoting a certain song as their "pick". In April 2017, the panel was upgraded to leave beta status, renamed as "Spotify for Artists", and opened to all artists and managers. In March 2009, Spotify began offering music downloads in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain.