Tag Archives: spotify

Spotify dominates the music industry. This becomes really obvious if you don't use Spotify: You end up being sent, and inevitably clicking on, Spotify links all the time. It happens on social media, yes, but also in text exchanges with friends, in emails, and in DMs. The thought is a …

Apple has a Spotify problem—and it just cost the iPhone maker a $2 billion fine from the European Commission. For years, the two companies have been at war as the streaming service lured users away from Apple’s iTunes and accused the tech giant of exploiting its dominance to stifle innovation. …

Kaytranada and Kehlani. Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” Sheck Wes’ “Mo Bamba.” The commonalities these artists and songs share is neither region nor genre but platform. SoundCloud was their origin point. “It sparked so many careers once upon a time,” says Stonie Blue, a New York-based DJ and cofounder …

Kindle libraries; troves of infinitely streamable songs on Spotify and Apple Music; scores of shows and films on Netflix, Max, and Hulu. Even the Criterion Collection is online now. Cultural archives now live on server farms, so much so that the value of physical media seems ever-shifting. While there’s some …

Just days after people gleefully posted their Spotify Wrapped, bad news came for the music streaming giant. Spotify announced today that it would cut 17 percent of its workforce, a chunk that equates to an estimated 1,500 people. It’s the third time the world’s largest music streamer has cut jobs …

Your first gift of the holiday season has arrived: It’s Spotify Wrapped time. The annual packaging of people’s most-listened-to tracks and artists begins rolling out this morning. An unofficial start to the gifting season, Wrapped has proved to be a social trend that just won’t die. To some, its dominance …

After work hours on September 27, employees of Fortnite maker Epic Games received a calendar invite informing them of a mandatory meeting the next morning, according to an employee who received the message. Just before the surprise all-hands was scheduled to begin, employees of the online record store Bandcamp, which …

Every night, I bury my tinnitus under brown noise, cats’ purrs, and the tap of rain on leaves. This “functional music,” as it is known, certainly serves its function—lulling me to sleep. It also accounts for a vast portion of the streaming world: Spotify recently revealed that white noise and …

In early 2020, at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ash Gutierrez was 15 and living at home in the tiny North Carolina town of Hendersonville and really into the video game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. At home, he heard his parents’ pop and rock standards. His mom loved ABBA. His …