Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
Daniel Ekis a Swedish entrepreneur who in 2006 cofounded Spotify, an Internet music-streaming service that provides listeners with legal, ad-supported access to millions of songs, rejecting traditional models of downloading and eliminating per-song costs.
Ek grew up in Ragsved, near Stockholm, and, as a teenager, he created Web sites for businesses and ran Web hosting services out of his bedroom. He dropped out of college and worked for several Web-based companies before founding Advertigo, an online marketing firm that he sold in 2006 to the Swedish company Tradedoubler. He then established Spotify with Tradedoubler’s cofounder, Martin Lorentzon, and became CEO. Ek’s innovative business model for providing access to music online differed from other services in that it did not involve charging for song downloads. Spotify customers could listen to online streaming music for free if they were willing to allow display or audio advertising. For $5 or $10 a month in subscription fees, however, consumers could avoid the advertisements.
From the outset, the music industry expressed little enthusiasm for Ek’s innovation, because Spotify’s license to stream music earned the industry far less revenue per song than it got from a music download service such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes. Ek retorted that Spotify discouraged online music piracy by providing a low-cost alternative and that the service would, over time, generate substantial royalties for the music industry. Despite such reservations, Spotify launched in 2008 and quickly became popular with both users and investors. By 2010 venture capital money was beginning to flow in to Spotify, and some analysts estimated that the service’s potential value was as much as $4 billion. In 2012 Spotify had 18 million songs and more than 20 million monthly active users, though not all were paying subscribers. Five years later, however, the site featured more than 35 million songs and had nearly 160 million monthly active users, more than 70 million of whom were subscribers. Amid this incredible growth, Ek oversaw Spotify’s initial public offering in April 2018. In an unusual move, the company offered no new stock, and instead only existing shares were made available. After the first day of trading, Spotify had a market value of about $27 billion.
