Revolutionary music streaming platform Spotify is a giant in the world of streaming. Arguments have sparked up over what is the ‘best’ service, but the numbers do not lie, and Spotify takes the cake. I was curious to find out why Spotify is as popular as it is, and I landed on Daniel Ek.
Daniel Ek is the millennial entrepreneur creator of Spotify, and launched Spotify in 2008. Before Spotify, there were very few subscription-based music platforms that were legal. Spotify also offers a very affordable subscription price, and even offers college students a further discounted price.
Ek saw this problem where there were easy ways to access music through companies like Napster or Deezer, but the ways people were using these services was illegal. Daniel Ek wanted to help artists take back their music, while he could also make money off of this.
Today, Spotify has its very popular algorithm that suggests new music for people to listen to based on their previous listening history, and also shows them statistics like who their favorite artists were from a certain year. Spotify today is valued at over $70 billion and is the first place on the podium of music streaming platforms, and that is coming from an Apple Music subscriber.
I would like you all to meet Noreen Davies, an 84 year old who decided to pick up learning the trombone at age 72. I don’t know about you, but I rarely hear about people learning new skills at age 72. In fact, I often hear that if I haven’t started a skill (whether it be an instrument, sport, or something else) at a young age, I have missed my chance to learn it. So, it was a pleasant surprise for me to learn about someone who decided not to listen to the narrative and pick up a new skill anyway. And not only did Davies pick up a new skill; she got good enough to pick up gigs at local shops with other musicians.
