Spotify Unwrapped: Notes on Streaming,

Listening and Being Listened To

By Julie Landers

Spotify is an audio streaming and media service provider founded by Daniel Ek in 2006. As of 2022 it is the most popular music streaming service globally, with 350 million users and 150 million subscribers. 42.85% of its users pay for it. Subscription prices for Spotify Premium range from €5.99 per month (Student plan) to €17.99 per month (Family plan). Spotify Premium allows users to listen without ads, select which songs they can listen to and the order they listen to them in and to create their own personalised playlists.

What makes Spotify the successful streaming platform that it is today? Do the artists that use Spotify to share their music and generate an audience benefit from using the platform? Can we as listeners and consumers find ways of ensuring that the artist is rewarded for the work that they do?