$200M of that loss went to Joe Rogan.
200m of the 172m loss?
It paid 200m of a 3.5 year deal announced May 2020 in a single quarter?
None of that adds up.
Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
11–20 of 28 posts
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the podcast space? They already invested hundreds of millions on Joe Rogan and can't even develop a half-decent podcast interface. Maybe they could improve on that front and diversify a bit?
The thinking may have been that they cannot make money from music, but maybe podcasts could be profitable.
Exactly. That's why it's baffling to see them spend, what? 100-200? million dollars just on Joe Rogan, to then spend 0 dollars in podcast UI improvements.
I could imagine taking a Netflix-style approach perhaps, where you fund small-ish podcast producers and see what sticks. Perhaps develop a podcast-specific UI mode. Maybe create a monetization platform for podcasts (similar to Substack) so that you can attract talent and then extract the all-too-familiar XX% in platform fees?
I mean, I'm sure Spotify employees have thought of these things before, it's not like these ideas are revolutionary. But I see nothing that makes my Spotify subscription a must-have.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#13I tried to convince my son to try the spotify premium which is currently 3 months free trial.
He said he does not need another service on top of YouTube premium and Apple Music even if it’s free.
He’s not wrong.
I’m not sure how a music only service can survive on its own- I often switch between videoclips, songs, podcasts with video or not, all on YouTube. Another app/service for just some of these things is not convenient.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#14>>> In January, following similar moves by other tech industry giants, the streaming giant announced it was cutting around 600 jobs out of around 10,000. I would have guessed a total headcount of 2K-3K. Anybody has an idea of the approximate headcount by department ? 10K full time employees seem a lot to me.
There's a rule that when at scale every edge case is a real problem.
There's likely a whole org working on integrations with some oddball apps and devices. They likely make millions from this edge use case since Spotify operates at such scale. There's likely an org that makes small 0.1% improvements to server infra that saves millions. Every possible edge case bug is being hit at their scale. It's worth having extra engineers to tackle those.
Not to mention the shear business complexity of what they do. Billing, paying royalties, advertisers, legal compliance etc.
10k employees. For a huge company that operates across the globe. That seems small.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#15I tried to convince my son to try the spotify premium which is currently 3 months free trial. He said he does not need another service on top of YouTube premium and Apple Music even if it’s free. He’s not wrong. I’m not sure how a music only service can survive on its own- I often switch between videoclips, songs, podcasts with video or not, all on YouTube. Another app/service for just some of these things is not con…
If you don't have apple stuff it's pretty obvious choice.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#16I tried to convince my son to try the spotify premium which is currently 3 months free trial. He said he does not need another service on top of YouTube premium and Apple Music even if it’s free. He’s not wrong. I’m not sure how a music only service can survive on its own- I often switch between videoclips, songs, podcasts with video or not, all on YouTube. Another app/service for just some of these things is not con…
I just use Apple Music. I have no need for Google's Music service.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#17Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#18> passes 500M active users
In which direction?
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#19>>> In January, following similar moves by other tech industry giants, the streaming giant announced it was cutting around 600 jobs out of around 10,000. I would have guessed a total headcount of 2K-3K. Anybody has an idea of the approximate headcount by department ? 10K full time employees seem a lot to me.
There's a rule that when at scale every edge case is a real problem. There's likely a whole org working on integrations with some oddball apps and devices. They likely make millions from this edge use case since Spotify operates at such scale. There's likely an org that makes small 0.1% improvements to server infra that saves millions. Every possible edge case bug is being hit at their scale. It's worth having extra…
no trust me i could recreate spotify in my garage with 5 engineers, I mean all they do is play mp3s, how hard could it be.
Re: Spotify passes 500M active users as operating losses deepen
#20>>> In January, following similar moves by other tech industry giants, the streaming giant announced it was cutting around 600 jobs out of around 10,000. I would have guessed a total headcount of 2K-3K. Anybody has an idea of the approximate headcount by department ? 10K full time employees seem a lot to me.
There's a rule that when at scale every edge case is a real problem. There's likely a whole org working on integrations with some oddball apps and devices. They likely make millions from this edge use case since Spotify operates at such scale. There's likely an org that makes small 0.1% improvements to server infra that saves millions. Every possible edge case bug is being hit at their scale. It's worth having extra…
FTP server and a big pipe is all you need