So you wait months for a Daniel Ek interview and then two show up at once. He’s on the cover of the latest issue of Billboard – conveniently published mere days before Apple’s big announcement today (hem hem). There is lots to go through here, including the well-thumbed story of his background, early tech success with uTorrent and his Damascene moment to get into music streaming as well as supporting quotes from people around Spotify which has become a trope in features about Ek. But the quotes and facts that most jumped out at us were as follows:
– pre-emptive defensiveness ahead of the Apple launch: “Apple will probably be pretty successful, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of Spotify”
– Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify (1): “Her YouTube streams went through the roof. What that tells me is the audience that was listening to Taylor Swift on Spotify went on YouTube to do it instead. Then you may ask, ‘Well, what was the benefit of it?’”
– Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify (2): “I’m not saying you can’t be successful in the music industry without Spotify. But when I look at the future of music, I don’t think scarcity is the model anymore. We have to embrace ubiquity – that music is everywhere.”
– Spotify’s impact on the record business: “I started this company to help the music industry, not get vilified by them. This is probably the biggest change since the inception of recorded music, because since then we’ve sold music by units and we’re no longer doing that. But if you’re going to make this change and you’re the poster boy for that, I think the worst we could hope for is people being indifferent.”
– Conversion rates: according to a major label executive with access to Spotify user data, 69% of those who subscribe to Spotify after using the ad-supported version do so within 90 days.
– And quite a nice story about getting a lift from Neil Young.
Side note: photo editors – it is possible to take a picture of the head of a music company without them having to wear headphones and look like they’re just casually grooving to some “deep cuts”.
Daniel Ek on Taylor Swift, Neil Young, Apple and why the music industry has to “embrace ubiquity”
