When Spotify announced its largest-ever round of layoffs in December, CEO Daniel Ek hailed a new age of efficiency at the streaming giant. But four months on, it seems he and his executives weren’t prepared for how tough filling in for 1,500 axed workers would be.

The music streamer enjoyed record quarterly profits of €168 million ($179 million) in the first three months of 2024, enjoying double-digit revenue growth to €3.6 billion ($3.8 billion) in the process.

However, the company failed to hit its guidance on profitability and monthly active user growth.

Edit: Thanks to @[email protected] for the paywall-free link: https://archive.ph/wdyDS

  • towerful@programming.dev
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    6 months ago

    I have finally stopped using Spotify.
    Now using TIDAL and absolutely loving it. It’s like what Spotify used to be, loads of great recommendations, much better audio quality, a bit cheaper, and I believe the artists get a better cut.
    It’s too good to last, but I’m going to enjoy it while it does

    • vibinya@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I absolutely love Tidal as well. Was a long time Spotify subscriber, but their UI/UX decisions, especially for their desktop client, finally frustrated me enough to switch. Had almost no issues moving my playlists over, have a shuffle which actually shuffles, still have daily recommendation playlists, and my favorite part -patch notes; I know what’s happening and why. They actually listen to user feedback and make updates based on it.

    • Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      I saw Spotify sent out an email for another fee hike yesterday. When I opened the app, it was showing me some garbage for an AI playlist generator and the email mentioned they needed more money to pay for amazing new features, the new AI system was no better than the previous system so I figured wtf do they need it for.

      After 15 years of being a paid member, I’m going to wrap it up and go back to piracy.

      • Thassodar@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        I’m on the same track although I distribute my music there, so I wonder if unsubbing will affect that. I’m not subbed to the other platforms that have my music, so I don’t see why it would.

        Because they have a huge market share, though, it’s easier to tell people check me out on Spotify than Tidal/Deezer/Bandcamp or whatever because the average Joe doesn’t know what those are.

    • Quazatron@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I’ve been using Tidal for a long time, and it has only gotten better.

      They recently upgraded all tiers to high quality (better than CD) quality for free.

      Meanwhile Spotify still doesn’t have the high quality audio tier they promised a few years ago.

    • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Does Tidal let family members live at different addresses or do they restrict a family to one house?

    • assembly@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I dropped Spotify during that whole Joe Rogan thing but I had been a long time subscriber. I moved to Apple Music which is super buggy and has what appears to be zero interest in playing music I actually like. From your comment, I’ll give Tidal a shot.

    • soEZ@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Switched to tidal as got fedup with Spotify shit app quality, constant breaking when usieng Android auto, and glitching out when playing between pc/android. Tidal is better but missing things. My wife loves alexa integration…so she sticking with Spotify. I am enjoying tidal though. It just works evey time. Its clear why it stops playinga song, and so on. I would rather miss featurs then use buggy product. Spotify is full of random featurs and crap but its buggier then ever…

      One other stark difference is the qulaity of of mixes and radio stations tidal puts together…spotify plays same stuff on loop basically, i rarely got anything good thats new and not promoted artist…with tidal i get a huge mix of artists in mymixes and radios, both new and old stuff…its been better for discovery then Spotify.

    • DerArzt@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Just took a look at their pricing. Immediately comparable with Spotify (same price for both individual and family). Looks like I’m trying a new streaming service!

      • skarn@lemmy.today
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        6 months ago

        I expect that’s due to the 30% cut taken on subscriptions purchased through the app store

      • bsides@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If that’s the argument, that’s not even the right price. It should be $15.70, because 15.70 - 30% = 10.99. They are losing money if they keep doing math wrong. Looks like they just put 30% above 10 (which isn’t 10.99 by the way) and ran with it.

        Best of luck!

    • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I have been using and will continue to use Pandora. I pay five bucks a month for no commercials it continually sends me music that I like to listen to and I have had little to no problems with it since I first signed up. While currently everyone I know who uses Spotify does nothing but complain about how their playlists keep playing them stuff they don’t want or have previously disliked.