Big Tech is like that friend you had in your early 20s who was always full of big ideas and infectiously optimistic but always seemed to be hemorrhaging money as all their schemes would be best described as “financially hilarious.”
Spotify was founded in 2006 but only just turned its first full-year profit in 2024, as reported in this past Tuesday’s Spotify earnings call. High off the fumes of success, Spotify’s CEO and founder Daniel Ek went on to say, “We’re gonna double down on music in 2025, and I’m personally very excited about that.”
Great. Cool. Spotify is a juggernaut, and I use it almost daily. But what does “double down” mean? Ek didn’t provide details. But we have ideas…
x marks the spot(ify)
A lot happened for Spotify last year. It churned through three rounds of layoffs, ultimately laying off 20% of its workforce in the span of a calendar year.
They also pushed an update to its royalty model: a track must see a minimum of 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months in order to receive any royalty payout.
Hot off that PR nightmare, it then had to defend itself from a report in Harper’s that accused the streaming titan of populating users’ recommendations with “ghost artists” or “fake artists” from music production companies that wouldn’t require the same royalty payouts as typical artists, although Spotify denied the claim.
It was also the first year that Spotify Wrapped incorporated AI, although it went over like a Led Zeppelin with many who saw it as an overzealous push to shoehorn AI into a fun, end-of-year bonus that had been working pretty well without it. Who needs AI-generated DJs spouting cringey banter?
So what exactly did Ek mean when he said Spotify was doubling down on music? I’m wishing he meant Spotify’s HiFi tier, announced way back in 2022, is actually going to come out this year to compete against the hi-fidelity, lossless tiers that Apple Music and Tidal offer.
And, if I’m allowed to wish for more wishes, I’d throw in a request for less “witty” AI banter in Spotify Wrapped, too.
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