In addition to the growing debate over payments to artists from Spotify, a new survey points to two very different pictures of the streaming music service's future. On the one hand the Mediavision survery of Swedish users – Spotify's home country and where it has operated the longest – showed what others have: Spotify reduces piracy – 9% last year alone. But...
The same survey also shows that 43% of Swedish users are planning to replace Spotify, in part or in full, with alternatives like YouTube. 48% are planning to move to other streaming services.
"We are mystified by the findings of this report, and believe both the research method and the results to be fundamentally flawed," Sofie Grant of Spotify told The Local. "Spotify has continued to grow its userbase across Sweden and the world, and now has well over 10 million registered users and over 2 million paying subscribers".
For artists and labels worried that Spotify discourages sales and pays out too little, the survey only adds to their dilema. If payments from Spotify are compared with the zero income received from pirated music, anything looks good. But if users leave the service – whose payments to rightsholders are based on a percentage of income from ads and paid subscriptions – then per play payments will only shrink further.
