[12] While certain musicians have voiced objections to Spotify's royalty structure and its effect on record sales, others laud the service for offering a lawful option to combat piracy and for remunerating artists each time their music is played.

[18] Spotify launched in the United States in July 2011, and offered a six-month, ad-supported trial period, during which new users could listen to an unlimited amount of music for free.

[20] In April 2016, Ek and Lorentzon wrote an open letter to Swedish politicians, demanding action in three areas that they claimed hindered the company's ability to recruit top talent as Spotify grew, including access to flexible housing, better education in the programming and development fields, and stock options.

Ek and Lorentzon wrote that to continue competing in a global economy, politicians needed to respond with new policies, or thousands of Spotify jobs would be moved from Sweden to the United States.

[21] In February 2017, Spotify announced the expansion of its United States operations in Lower Manhattan, New York City, at 4 World Trade Center, adding approximately 1,000 new jobs and retaining 832 existing positions.

[25] A month later, Spotify announced that "Lean On" by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ was its most-streamed song of all time with over 525 million streams worldwide.

Starting today, Universal artists can choose to release new albums on premium only for two weeks, offering subscribers an earlier chance to explore the complete creative work, while the singles are available across Spotify for all our listeners to enjoy".

In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific's team would lead an advanced analytics unit within the company, focused on developing data services.

[70] In November 2016, Spotify acquired Preact, a "cloud-based platform and service developed for companies that operate on subscription models which helps reduce churn and build up their subscriber numbers".

[72] Later that month, Spotify also acquired MightyTV, an app connected to television streaming services, including Netflix and HBO Go, that recommends content to users.

[88] On 5 February 2020, Spotify announced its intent to acquire Bill Simmons' sports and pop culture blog and podcast network The Ringer for an undisclosed amount.

On 19 May 2020, Spotify acquired exclusive rights to stream the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience beginning in September of that year, under an agreement valued at around US$100 million (equivalent to $116,000,000 in 2023).

Armchair Expert announced on Instagram that the podcast would be available exclusively on Spotify beginning 1 July, saying they would continue to maintain the same creative control over the show after the move.

[122] In 2020 and 2021, Spotify and DC, a brand at the time under Warner Bros. Entertainment signed deals to create audio shows on the platform around characters such as Catwoman, Wonder Woman, the Riddler, Batgirl, Superman and Lois Lane, among others.

"[129] Sewell responded to the letter: "We find it troubling that you are asking for exemptions to the rules we apply to all developers and are publicly resorting to rumors and half-truths about our service."

[143] In May 2023, Spotify removed tens of thousands of songs, roughly 7% of the tracks uploaded by the Boomy, due to suspected "artificial streaming", the practice of using online bots to inflate the listening statistics.

[145] In December 2024, Harper’s Magazine released a report alledging that Spotify was padding out playlists with ghost artists created by production companies in order to minimise royalty costs and increase profits.

[154][155] In November 2022, Henry Catalini Smith, a Spotify engineer in Malmö, set up the channel #kollektivavtal in the internal company Slack, which means "collective agreement" in Swedish.

[170] After 15 months of bargaining, the Parcast union consisting of 56 workers ratified their first collective agreement, which included a minimum salary of $70,000, annual increases and affirmative action while hiring.

Music Week editor Tim Ingham commented that while the figure may "initially seem alarming", he noted: "Unlike buying a CD or download, streaming is not a one-off payment.

Hundreds of millions of streams of tracks are happening every day, which quickly multiplies the potential revenues on offer—and is a constant long-term source of income for artists.

In June 2017, as part of renegotiated licenses with Universal Music Group and Merlin Network, Spotify's financial filings revealed its agreement to pay more than $2 billion (equivalent to $2,445,000,000 in 2023) in minimum payments over the next two years.

Billboard estimated that the changes will pay songwriters and publishers $150 million less "from premium, duo and family plans for the first 12 months that this is in effect, compared to what they would have earned if these three subscriptions were never bundled.

[215] In June 2017, Variety reported that Spotify would announce "Secret Genius", a new initiative aimed at highlighting songwriters and producers, and the effect those people have on the music industry and the artists' careers.

The project, which would feature awards, "Songshops" songwriting workshops, curated playlists, and podcasts, is an effort to "shine a light on these people behind the scenes who play such a big role in some of the most important moments of our lives.

When the general public hears a song, they automatically associate it with the artist who sings it, not the people behind the scenes who make it happen, so we thought the title Secret Genius was appropriate", Spotify's former Global Head of Creator Services Troy Carter told Variety the first awards ceremony would take place in late 2017,[needs update] and was intended to honour "the top songwriters, producers and publishers in the industry as well as up-and-coming talent".

It combines short-form podcast news updates from The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and PRI with a mix of a user's favorite songs and artists interspersed with tracks the listener has yet to discover.

He explained, "An extension of the internet radio craze of the early 2000s, Spotify would license content from record labels, and then support artists as people listened to their music.

[395] Since about 2021 Spotify was filling its playlists in some genres (including jazz, chill and "peaceful piano") with stock music attributed to a handful of little-known musicians, mostly Swedish, in an effort to reduce its royalty payouts.

In 2022, an investigation by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter found that around twenty songwriters were behind the work of more than five hundred "artists," and that thousands of their tracks were on Spotify and had been streamed millions of times.