The WNYC Studios partnership brought various podcasts from WNYC to Spotify, including Note to Self, On the Media and Here’s the Thing. In October 2022, Spotify acquired the Dublin-based content moderation startup, Kinzen. In July 2022, Spotify acquired Heardle, a Wordle-inspired music trivia game, for an undisclosed amount; Heardle was shut down in May 2023. Armchair Expert announced on Instagram that the podcast would be available exclusively on Spotify beginning 1 July, saying they would continue to maintain the same creative control over the show after the move. In March 2021, Spotify acquired app developer Betty Labs and their live social audio app, Locker Room, On 12 May 2021. On 19 May 2020, Spotify acquired exclusive rights to stream the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience beginning in September of that year, under an agreement valued at around US$100 million (equivalent to $119,100,000 in 2024).
Artists through social media platforms, especially TikTok, often got their popularity boost through Spotify. Artists through Spotify can sell tickets to their music venue, promote their merchandise, add their videos as stories through Spotify clips, and promote new releases of their work through countdown pages. Ahead of Spotify Wrapped 2024, Spotify changed its API so that modded versions of the client would not work. Audio files must either be in the .mp3, .mp4 (.mp4 files that have video streams are not supported), or .m4p media formats. All other streams of selected songs outside of Spotify Radio and Autoplay remain commission-free. One such feature is a tool that Spotify rolled out in March 2023, called “Discovery Mode”.
App Privacy
On 14 November 2018, the company announced 13 new markets in the MENA region, including the creation of a new Arabic hub and several playlists. It offers some social media features such as messaging, creating profiles, following friends, shared playlists, and creating listening parties called “Jams”. Listen to your favourite songs and discover new music, podcasts and audiobooks with the Spotify app! In doing so, if users chose to listen to one set of these artists’ music, it effectively reduced the number of plays for other musicians. In 2021, a conspiracy theory began to take hold that Spotify was filling its playlists in some genres (including jazz, chill and “peaceful piano”) with stock music attributed to a handful of little-known musicians, mostly Swedish, in an effort to meet demand for background music.
- In September 2025, Lossless audio, which allows Spotify users to listen to songs in very high quality, became available through Spotify premium.
- It offers some social media features such as messaging, creating profiles, following friends, shared playlists, and creating listening parties called “Jams”.
- The most commonly perceived error is said to be caused by a lack of diverse scope within curation staff, including overlooking mainstay artists in large genres, potentially causing a categorical homogenization of musical styles; even impacting mainline artists like within hip hop with A Tribe Called Quest.
- In doing so, if users chose to listen to one set of these artists’ music, it effectively reduced the number of plays for other musicians.
- While certain musicians laud the service for offering a lawful option to combat piracy and for remunerating artists each time their music is played, others have voiced objections to Spotify’s royalty structure and its effect on record sales.
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 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.
The primary point of criticism centers around what artists, music creators, and the media have described as “unsustainable” compensation. Spotify Wrapped had generated two billion impressions worldwide, and more ninety million Spotify users share their Spotify Wrapped statistics online, especially through social media. Spotify also has a ‘blend’ feature in which two users’ music preferences are mixed in a shared playlist. Spotify had added social media-related features to its platform, especially to compete for ad revenue and to increase its media-related users.
In a further escalation of the dispute with Apple, on 13 March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over unfair app store practices. Spotify released the first version of its Apple Watch app in November 2018, allowing playback control of the iPhone via the watch. Furthermore, he stated that “There is nothing in Apple’s conduct that ‘amounts to a violation of applicable antitrust laws.’ Far from it. … I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules”. Listeners will be able to link their Spotify to ChatGPT, asking it to find anything from a specific playlist to a podcast topic. In May 2020, Spotify teamed up with ESPN and Netflix to curate podcasts around their Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance, and in September, Spotify signed a deal with Chernin Entertainment to produce movies and TV shows.
- In May 2016, Spotify announced “Sponsored Playlists”, a monetisation opportunity in which brands can specify the audiences they have in mind, with Spotify matching the marketer with suitable music in a playlist.
- It was announced later in April that this type of agreement would be extended to indie artists signed to the Merlin Network agency.
- In a further escalation of the dispute with Apple, on 13 March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over unfair app store practices.
- Curate the best playlists and stream millions of free songs, albums and original podcasts on your mobile or tablet.
- In October 2017, Spotify launched “Rise”, a program aimed at promoting emerging artists.
- In June 2015, Spotify announced they had acquired Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm and analytics company.
SharePlay
Spotify provides access to over 100 million songs, 5 million podcasts, and 4 billion playlists. Unlike the apps, the web player does not have the ability to download music for offline listening. Spotify also offers a proprietary protocol known as “Spotify Connect”, which lets users listen to music through a wide range of entertainment systems, including speakers, receivers, TVs, cars, and smartwatches. The company said users would be able to login into the main Spotify app with their Stations account and transfer their stations into Spotify.
One year later, in 31 cities worldwide, 27,500 musicians joined UMAW’s campaign #JusticeAtSpotify to demand a compensation of one cent per audio stream. The United Musicians and Allied Workers campaigns for a fairer redistribution and compensation system for musicians. In November 2022, Henry Catalini Smith, a Spotify engineer in Malmö, set up the channel #kollektivavtal in the internal company Slack, which means “collective agreement” in Swedish.
In January 2014, Spotify removed all time limits for Free users on all platforms, including on computers, which previously had a 10-hour monthly listening limit after a 6-month grace period. The post stated that all free members would be limited to ten hours of music streaming per month, and in addition, individual tracks were limited to five plays. Spotify has experimented with different limitations to users’ listening on the Free service tier. Users can refine playlists with additional instructions, such as “more upbeat” or “happier songs”. 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.
While the streaming music industry in general faces the same critique about inadequate payments, Spotify, being the leading service, faces particular scrutiny due to its free service tier, allowing users to listen to music for free, though with advertisements between tracks. In May 2017, Spotify introduced Spotify Codes for its mobile apps, a way for users to share specific artists, tracks, playlists or albums with other people. Today, royalties on all streaming services, including Spotify are paid on a per user basis not per stream as this allows the artists who users listen to the most to receive the largest percentage of the payouts.
Spotify for Artists
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. The company also announced an expansion of its book catalogue to 250,000 books. In January 2021, Spotify made a selection of audiobooks available on the platform as a test of developing a greater breadth of content for users. Spotify thereafter announced it was planning to add more of these pages and playlists to highlight songwriters.
On 19 November 2019, Spotify announced the acquisition of the exclusive rights to The Last Podcast on the Left. Spotify intended to use MightyTV to improve its advertising efforts on the free tier of service. In March 2017, Spotify acquired Sonalytic, an audio detection startup, for an undisclosed amount of money.
Premium-exclusive albums
This approach is not intended to raise fresh capital, but to let investors get their returns. The Financial Times reported in March 2017 that, as part of its efforts to renegotiate new licensing deals with music labels, Spotify and major record labels had agreed that Spotify would restrict some newly released albums to its Premium tier, with Spotify receiving a reduction in royalty fees to do so. In countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Spotify registered a fall in users in late February, but it has seen a recovery. On 19 June 2018, XXXTentacion’s hit single “Sad!” broke Swift’s single-day streaming record, amassing 10.4 million streams the day after he was fatally shot in Florida. A month later, Spotify announced that “Lean On” by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ was its most-streamed song of all time with over 525 million streams worldwide. Registrations surged following the release of the mobile service, leading Spotify to halt registration for the free service in September, returning the UK to an invitation-only policy.
Telegram Web “A version”? Can’t find anything about it. Apparently identical to version Z
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, frostybet casino 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 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. On 3 July 2020, cybersecurity firm VPNMentor discovered a database containing 380 million individual records, including the logins and passwords of Spotify users. It was announced later in April that this type of agreement would be extended to indie artists signed to the Merlin Network agency. New reports in April confirmed that Spotify and Universal Music Group had reached an agreement to allow artists part of Universal to limit their new album releases to the Premium service tier for a maximum of two weeks.
Social Media
In April, Spotify announced a discounted entertainment bundle with video-on-demand provider Hulu, which included discounted rates for university students. In December, Spotify and Tencent’s music arm, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), agreed to swap stakes and make an investment in each other’s music businesses. Two more partnerships were announced in March; one with WNYC Studios, and one with Waze. PlayStation Music incorporates the Spotify service into Sony’s PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles, and Sony Xperia mobile devices. In 2023, Spotify merged Anchor into their Spotify for Podcasters tool, a rebranding move and to organize its tools for creating, managing, growing, and monetizing their content in one place.
