Spotify gained 2 million subscribers this year despite Joe Rogan controversy and Russia...

[Tudor Cibean]

Bottom line: Spotify ended the first quarter with 182 million premium subscribers, narrowly missing its initial target by 1 million. It claims this is because of the suspension of its services in Russia, although the recent controversy regarding Joe Rogan's podcast probably didn't help either. Following the report, Spotify's stock went down 12 percent.

While Netflix had one of the worst quarters in the company's history, Spotify seems to be better off. In its latest earnings report, the company announced its premium subscriber count rose to 182 million. That's a 15-percent gain year-over-year and an extra 2 million compared to the end of 2021. Total monthly active users increased 19 percent YoY to 422 million, up from 406 million last year.

Spotify initially expected to get to 183 million subscribers in Q1, claiming it missed this mark because of the suspension of its services in Russia. It lost 1.5 million paying users because of this, and it expects to see an additional 600,000 disconnects in the second quarter. Considering the controversy Spotify has seen this year, that's still some impressive growth.

We delivered another strong quarter building on momentum from 2021. Grateful for the tireless work of the @Spotify team on behalf of creators and listeners around the world https://t.co/jnNPFgm9YK pic.twitter.com/ddq1NiJf5n

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) April 27, 2022

In January, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removed their music from the platform to protest the vaccine misinformation they believed was Joe Rogan's podcast was spreading. Soon after, #SpotifyDeleted started trending on Twitter as more people began boycotting the company.

Spotify is the world's largest audio streaming service, with a report from MIDiA claiming it controlled a 31% market share in Q2 2021. Apple Music was a distant second with only a 15% market share.

In other news, Spotify's lossless audio streaming option, aptly named HiFi, still has no official release date. Initially unveiled in February 2021, the company claimed it would roll out later that year.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94372-spotify-gained-2-million-subscribers-year-despite-joe.html

 

[Sausagemeat]

So I’m pretty certain that the calls to take down Joe Rogan only made him and by extension Spotify more popular. It was just a tiny minority of “woke” people on Twitter who were demanding he gets taken down. And nobody really takes those people seriously anyway.

 

[Bl00dyMinded]

So I’m pretty certain that the calls to take down Joe Rogan only made him and by extension Spotify more popular. It was just a tiny minority of “woke” people on Twitter who were demanding he gets taken down. And nobody really takes those people seriously anyway.

FACTS.

 

[terzaerian]

Cloud services taking Ls is always music to my ears. As it turns out, it will be you, that owns nothing, Mr. Schwab!

 

[m4a4]

So I’m pretty certain that the calls to take down Joe Rogan only made him and by extension Spotify more popular. It was just a tiny minority of “woke” people on Twitter who were demanding he gets taken down. And nobody really takes those people seriously anyway.

Well, reasonable people don't. But we've seen "woke" companies take them more seriously than anyone ever should.....

 

[trparky]

Well, reasonable people don't. But we've seen "woke" companies take them more seriously than anyone ever should.....

And that's why we have the phrase... "Get woke, go broke". It's happened to a lot of companies yet they still don't learn. Quit pandering to the loud id10tic minority that aren't even buying your product.

 

[Dd663]

If it ain't woke, don't fix it.

Cloud services taking Ls is always music to my ears. As it turns out, it will be you, that owns nothing, Mr. Schwab!

But... music streaming services are probably the most consumer-friendly of any media subscription type. Unlike movie, TV, or game streaming/subscriptions, you get access to virtually all mainstream music with one subscription, usually for a very reasonable price.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Joe let's lots of people on his show, with conflicting or even naughty views. He's WAY more interesting then NPC talking point show #871.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Total monthly active users increased 19 percent YoY to 422 million, up from 406 million last year.

Since when does that = 19%?!?
422,000,000 - 406,000,000 = 16,000,000
That’s less than 4% by my calculations...am I missing something?

 

[Beerfloat]

So I’m pretty certain that the calls to take down Joe Rogan only made him and by extension Spotify more popular. It was just a tiny minority of “woke” people on Twitter who were demanding he gets taken down. And nobody really takes those people seriously anyway.

Spotify is the most popular streaming service and the market is far from saturated. Multiple services are still growing and I don't believe pro or con Joe Rogan is more than a barely identifiable blip on that trajectory.

People give way too much credit to the concept of 'woke' as being something that actually influences anyone's lives. It's just a big nothingburger.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

Total monthly active users increased 19 percent YoY to 422 million, up from 406 million last year.

Since when does that = 19%?!?
422,000,000 - 406,000,000 = 16,000,000
That’s less than 4% by my calculations...am I missing something?

I just checked their investor relations page and 406M was last quarter’s MAU count, not last year. It looks like they were at 356M a year ago, resulting in an 18.56% YoY increase: https://investors.spotify.com/finan...l-Results-for-First-Quarter-2021/default.aspx

 

[Squid Surprise]

I just checked their investor relations page and 406M was last quarter’s MAU count, not last year. It looks like they were at 356M a year ago, resulting in an 18.56% YoY increase: https://investors.spotify.com/finan...l-Results-for-First-Quarter-2021/default.aspx

Aha! TechSpot - write better please

 

[wiyosaya]

And even Joe Rogan could not put Spotify back together again!

 

[wiyosaya]

People give way too much credit to the concept of 'woke' as being something that actually influences anyone's lives. It's just a big nothingburger.

Exactly. While I don't necessarily care for some of the things that people are calling "woke," to me, good story telling is far more important, so I will tolerate the so-called "woke" stuff in something that has story telling that I think is, at the very least, good and watch/patronize it anyway.

I don't assume that I have the right to tell people how to live, where as it seems like some of those who claim to hate the "woke" stuff seem to think they have that right. As long as no one is forcing anything on me, live and let live is more important to me than patronizing the latest right or left leaning "cancel culture" fad.

Aside from that, much of what some people are calling woke, has, IMO, been part of humanity ever since humans learned to walk on two feet, and perhaps before that. There is no way, as I see it, that any politically motivated "cancel culture" will eliminate what is, essentially, a part of human nature.

 

[terzaerian]

Exactly. While I don't necessarily care for some of the things that people are calling "woke," to me, good story telling is far more important, so I will tolerate the so-called "woke" stuff in something that has story telling that I think is, at the very least, good and watch/patronize it anyway.

I don't assume that I have the right to tell people how to live, where as it seems like some of those who claim to hate the "woke" stuff seem to think they have that right. As long as no one is forcing anything on me, live and let live is more important to me than patronizing the latest right or left leaning "cancel culture" fad.

Aside from that, much of what some people are calling woke, has, IMO, been part of humanity ever since humans learned to walk on two feet, and perhaps before that. There is no way, as I see it, that any politically motivated "cancel culture" will eliminate what is, essentially, a part of human nature.

Satisfying the criteria of woke "thought" inherently turns a work into propaganda, and propaganda is the perversion of art. Art invites interpretation and leaves room for ambiguity; propaganda demands the viewer come to one foregone conclusion and anyone that questions it, in turn, is subject to scrutiny and persecution by authority.

You're right only on one count: this thought tyranny is nothing new in human culture, and like all forms of tyranny it cannot last forever and one day will crumble into forgotten dust and bad, distant memories.

 

[wiyosaya]

Satisfying the criteria of woke "thought" inherently turns a work into propaganda, and propaganda is the perversion of art. Art invites interpretation and leaves room for ambiguity; propaganda demands the viewer come to one foregone conclusion and anyone that questions it, in turn, is subject to scrutiny and persecution by authority.

You're right only on one count: this thought tyranny is nothing new in human culture, and like all forms of tyranny it cannot last forever and one day will crumble into forgotten dust and bad, distant memories.

You have an interesting opinion, and an opinion is one way of looking at something. From that standpoint, at least in my opinion, you might as well call Michelangelo's David "woke". http://www.italianrenaissance.org/michelangelos-david/

Here's another opinion expressed in this quote -

Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

You might disagree, but I think this extends beyond science fiction to fiction, and, in fact, to pretty much any art form. All art forms, IMO, are a window on the state of humanity when the particular work was created. If you want to call something that causes humanity to look at itself "propaganda," we both know beyond a doubt its your prerogative.

You may not agree, but that does not make either of us right or wrong, IMO.

Yes, someday, tyranny will disappear.

 

[AlaskaGuy]

People give way too much credit to the concept of 'woke' as being something that actually influences anyone's lives. It's just a big nothingburger.

Wokeness has affected our schools, military, entertainment, social media, courts, etc ...

 

[trparky]

I guess I should rephrase something here. I see no issue with bringing light to our society's issues because let's face it, if we don't bring an issue to light... How will we know that we have to fix it?

However, what we have in a lot of the entertainment world isn't just "woke-ism" but obnoxious woke-ism. Anything and everything must club you over the head every damn day of the week. You're bad, evil, racist, etc.

No, we don't want that. We don't want modern politics to be creeping into our entertainment. It's why it's called "entertainment"; it's meant to be something that takes you out of this shitty @ss world that we have for maybe and an hour or two.

The biggest offender of woke-ism infecting entertainment is in my opinion Star Trek, specifically Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard. The Picard show is basically only Star Trek because it has Picard in it, that's it. Then you have Star Trek Discovery where... s*it, the whole show is woke-ism. It's like these people who've infected Star Trek just do not get that Star Trek was about a future where things were better, a utopia where people just got along with each other. But no, we can't have that; we have to have mindless conflict between the characters and for what? Hell if I know. Apparently, that's what passes for entertainment but that's not what Star Trek was about.

Alright, rant over.