Spotify CEO Daniel Ek surprised at negative impact of laying off 1,500 Spotify employees
fortune.com
Ek said Spotify employees were doing too much "work around the work" as he laid off 17% of the group's workforce in December.

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 @Zerlyna@lemmy.world for the paywall-free link: https://archive.ph/wdyDS

  • SacrificedBeans@lemmy.world
    13·
    7 months ago

    Oh, I wasn’t aware of that.

    For the last couple of years I’ve been “flirting” with Spotify. It would offer me 3 months of premium for the price of one, I would take it and cancel immediately so I don’t forget.

    Then lived the happy pirate life for six months or so, and Spotify would come in with the offer. Last time the price was higher but I said what the hell…

    Now with this post I was about to uninstall, but I read some comments about services that transfer your playlists, so first things first :))

    • Nelots@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      7 months ago

      I’ve just used modded Spotify clients that give me premium for free for a long while now. Not sure if iPhones have an option like this, but there is an option on both Android and Windows.

      • SacrificedBeans@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 months ago

        That’s cool, I’m on Android and PC. But I don’t think I’ll go that way. I want to let Spotify die after these more than red flags.

        • Nelots@lemm.eeEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          Understandable, but I’ll be real, I don’t see it ever happening in our lifetime. Much like YouTube, nothing they do seems to cause them any meaningful backlash. The CEO could come over and personally shit in somebody’s food, and they would probably continue paying for premium.

          • SacrificedBeans@lemmy.world
            2·
            6 months ago

            Of course this is true. But I don’t think corporations die that way. More likely they will keep going with this culture, firing more/getting fewer employees, their product will get shittier and shitter, and more competition will fill the gaps, until they fight with one for the monopoly.

            All this somewhere near the unsuspecting pirates 😅

      • kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yes, but those modded clients still do not have 320 kbps streaming, I think since that is server sided. Plus, if someone wants to use 3rd party apps Spotify apps like ncspot, one needs a Premium subscription.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      i’ve just been using the “audio file” strategy for the last few years.

      No fuss, no problems, only my idiocy and shenanigans cause problems. It’s great. Sometimes metadata is just bunk though, that’s kind of annoying.