Spotify has shown people value streaming, and that means somewhere someone could use that value in a bigger chess game.
— James McQuivey, analyst with Forrester Research, isn t optimistic about Spotify s prospects over the next five years. He says big companies such as Apple, Google or Amazon could just as well offer what Spotify does (and they re starting to).
What does Spotify CEO Daniel Ek have to say about that? That his company — which allows users to stream music either for free or for $9.99 a month ad-free — has the advantage because it got to the streaming-music party first. What we ve built is the largest set of data of the most engaged music customers. I think it would be really hard for anyone to come in and do what we do better, he told the New Yorker.
Meanwhile, among Spotify s other worries is that of disgruntled artists. Pop singer Taylor Swift pulled her music catalog from Spotify, taking issue with the service s free-streaming offering. Ek responded that Swift and other artists were actually making money from paying subscribers, many of whom converted from using the free service.
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