Spotify Uncovered

According to the 10K filed with the SEC (Who knows with current US regime how long these will be available) Spotify paid subscriber numbers are as follows:

And for “free” subscribers:

And this is what they say about the content they stream:

Risks Related to Securing the Rights to the Content We Stream We depend upon third-party licenses for most of the content we stream and an adverse change to, loss of, or claim that we do not hold any necessary licenses may materially adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

They go farther and say:

We have no control over third-party providers of the content we stream. The concentration of control of content by our major providers means that even one entity, or a small number of entities working together, may unilaterally affect our access to music and other content.

And further:

We are a party to many license agreements that are complex and impose numerous obligations upon us that may make it difficult to operate our business, and a breach of such agreements could adversely affect our business, operating results, and financial condition.

As an out, Spotify says:

Our royalty payment system is complex, and it is difficult to estimate the amount payable under our license agreements or relevant statutes.

Later in the report it states:

Difficulties in obtaining accurate and comprehensive information necessary to identify the musical compositions embodied in sound recordings on our Service and the ownership thereof may impact our ability to perform our obligations under our licenses, affect the size of our catalog, impact our ability to control content acquisition costs, and lead to potential copyright infringement claims.

And the premium ARPU:

And for the results:

I admit the last couple of charts are a little hard to decypher, but bear with me. Spotify has seen a significant operating revenue difference since they started shafting smaller artists.

And for the grand finale:

It behooves you to try to get your listeners to move to other platforms other the Spotify, if for no other reason, the money pit Spotify is. I have tried, with reasonable good results over the past year and a half, to move my listeners to other platforms. Apple pays for real 25% more than Spotify and the kings of the payout derby include YouTube, Beatport and Amazon Music. And I now see 85-90% of my listeners on platforms other than Spotify.

As of a couple of years ago, even if you depend on the shitty payouts streaming provides, Spotify had only a 30% share of streaming. This means, if you use a distributor like DistroKid, there’s a 70% of the market still available. DistroKid distributes to over 30 platforms and to join DistroKid, it costs about $20 a year for unlimited uploads.

By the way Spotify’s P/E ratio as of 12 Aug 25 is approximately 150, in the stratospheric range of 200 for Tesla, so let’s give those oligarchs a steady downward trend.

If we can cut Spotify’s commanding lead in users by moving off of Spotify, we can hurt their bottom line. And Daniel Ek won’t be able to make the Military Industrial Complex purchases he has.