When was Spotify first released?

Spotify was first released in 2006 but became available in Europe in 2008 and 2011 in America.

How do I subscribe to Spotify?

To get a paid subscription to Spotify, you need to create an account and click on Try Spotify Premium from the subscription section. You will enter your credit card information, and your subscription will start.

Can I follow friends on Spotify?

Yes, you can follow your friends with their usernames and see what they are listening to.

What is the oldest song in Spotify?

The oldest uploaded song available on Spotify is Hurrian Hymn by Michael Levy, 2008.

How much do artists make from Spotify?

Approximately, each one thousand streams are bringing between 3 and 5 dollars.

When Did Spotify Come Out? - The History of It

Contents

Our favorite music streaming service in these last couple of years has been, without a doubt, Spotify. In the history of music listening, streaming, downloading applications, and programs, it is easy to say that Spotify has created a revolution. What Spotify has done differently is managed to make both customers and artists happy. Before that, either you had to pay to buy a CD or illegally download their music. But now, with Spotify, you can stream online, everywhere, and anytime. Okay, but when did Spotify come out?

Before we dig into the history of Spotify, you might wonder when did Spotify come out. Read further to find out.

When Was Spotify Created?

The founders of Spotify, and two Swedish entrepreneurs, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, launched the app in October 2008, changing the music industry and streaming services forever. Let’s start with what does the app good for. Spotify offers you two kinds of subscriptions, one a normal ad-supported account, in which you need constant internet access to be able to stream, and the other a premium subscription, where you need to pay a small amount of fee to listen to music and download it without any ads or internet connection. Check our article to learn how to use Spotify with its brand-new features.

Spotify is a company that has continued to grow in a good way since it was first launched. With the emergence of a company like Spotify and its impact on the music industry, high growth rates were observed in this sector. In the second half of 2022 alone, Spotify had almost 31% of all music streaming platforms. Although this was a low rate compared to the previous year, it surpassed the rates of Apple Music, one of its biggest competitors. And according to 2022 reports, Spotify currently has 489 million active users. That’s why Spotify still ranks first as the largest music streaming platform. Now, Spotify worth $24.76B, and also Spotify has 456 million users. Thus, it is time to buy Spotify followers and promote your music to music lovers!

Evolution of Spotify

Now, let’s talk about Spotify, its evolution, and its history. Spotify was ready to come out in 2006, but the music industry was not good then. Services before Spotify, like Limewire, allowed listeners to download all music illegally, leaving the producers and artists nothing. It took Spotify two years to make all the deals with the record companies, and finally, they launched in 2008 in most of Europe. It did come out, but in 2009, it wasn’t available in the USA, but there were some ways to download it from Europe. After the president of Facebook, Sean Parker, told Mark Zuckerberg to check Spotify out, Zuckerberg tweeted, “Spotify is so good.” And their recognition has gone even further.

Spotify History Timeline

In 2009 Lady Gaga’s Poker Face got a million streams on Spotify, and some rumors said that she only received a royalty check of one hundred sixty-seven dollars’ worth. Spotify later stated that the royalty contracts didn’t work that way and didn’t explain further information.
In March 2011, Spotify reached one million paying subscribers. In July of the same year, they released Spotify for the USA.
Even President Obama released a Spotify playlist in February 2012 for his presidential campaign. The playlist included Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, Wilco, and James Taylor tunes.
In March 2015, Jay-Z launched Tidal, another music streaming app, with artists like Rihanna and Kanye West. Tidal was seen as a direct attack on Spotify’s “freemium” business model.
Later that year, Spotify added podcasts, video streaming, and news streaming to the Spotify family in May. In the same year, in June, Apple launched Apple Music, which is still Spotify’s biggest competition in the industry.
In 2017 Taylor Swift returned to Spotify after leaving it for three years.
Since 2019 there have been ideas of Spotify working on its voice assistant and smart home speaker like Alexa.

Behind the Scenes of the Design

Let’s check the Spotify story here. It is obvious that the name Spotify is not a very common name. You may be wondering how this name came to be and what the Spotify name meaning can be. It’s actually a name that was found quite by chance. While discussing possible names for this music platform, Daniel, one of the Spotify founders, heard a word like “Spotify” amid the confusion, and this name was chosen as the name of the platform. Later, an explanation was brought to it to explain the Spotify name more clearly. This was as follows; The word ‘Spotify’ is created by combining the words ‘Spot’ and ‘Identify.’ Isn’t that actually a great name for the music platform? We can say that Spotify meaning can be explained as the importance of discovering your own identity through music. This already defines Spotify’s brand; “Music for everyone.”

Spotify’s Mission and Vision

Spotify’s brand is “Music for everyone.” We said it was. But it’s not limited to just that. Spotify’s primary purpose is to bring all kinds of music to everyone, as well as to reveal the shy artists in society. With Spotify Artist support, it allows unknown talents to upload their own music to the platform and bring it to the audience. We can say that they are trying to deliver music to everyone under equal conditions. If you are someone who wants to show their musical talents, you should definitely benefit from the support provided by Spotify. Unleash your inner artist!

Partnerships and Collaborations

We said that while Spotify grew as a platform, it also signed agreements with many companies and music platforms. Of course, these deals were what supported further Spotify industry growth in the market. Spotify tried to give users more opportunities by constantly updating itself. That’s why it has developed itself to give users access to more playlists, new singers, new songs, new styles, old and popular songs, and new and hottest songs. Discover Weekly, which he developed in-house, successfully carried many music lists, such as Billboard Hot 100, Hip-Hop, popular Pop, and Billboard R&B lists.
Spotify has also continued to make deals with many companies over the years to increase its membership. It has agreements with more than 50 companies so far. These companies include music and technology companies. Among Spotify’s biggest and most well-known partners are big companies such as Slack and SalesForce.

In addition, Spotify continued to grow by incorporating many music companies. To give an example of a few of them:

In 2013 Spotify acquired the Swedish music discovery app Tunigo.
In 2015 Spotify acquired a data science consulting firm Seed Scientific.
In 2019 Spotify acquired the podcasting studio Parcast.
In 2020, Spotify acquired The Ringer, a particularly famous company for its content, such as sports and entertainment.
In 2020 Spotify acquired another podcast company Megaphone.

All these companies are companies that Spotify bought to consolidate further and grow its place in the music industry. Spotify’s business continues to take part in every field to further improve the platform’s features.

Spotify’s Major Competitors

While Spotify has quickly become a popular app, it also has growing and thriving competitors. Among the big companies that affect the music industry are companies such as Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. And Spotify’s biggest competitor is Apple Music.

Apple Music was launched by Apple in 2015 and was originally a platform that only iPhone devices could access. Initially, its music library was quite limited, but it has emerged as Spotify’s biggest competitor over the years. And it’s an app currently supported on all devices.
Tidal was founded in 2015 by Jay-Z. The application, which mainly includes rap and r&b music, continued to develop its archive over time.
Amazon Music is one of the features offered by Amazon. The music library may not be as wide as Spotify and Apple Music yet, but it is an application that can be preferred as an alternative.
YouTube Music is one of the features offered by YouTube Premium. You can easily listen to any song on YouTube as audio.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked about Spotify’s history and explained how and when it came out. Hopefully, we were able to answer all your questions. Overall, it is up to you which platform to use, but it is safe to say Spotify has a couple more tricks and features. Try both in the free trial periods and choose what’s best for you. We hope to see you in another Spotify article!