[qznc]

> Ballmer saying no one would pay $500 for a phone?

And he is right. A smartphone is more than a phone. How can Netflix be more than a video player? One way seems to be to become a producer.

Back to Spotify: How to be more than a music player?

[majormajor]

One way is to be a ubiquitous one. I think the Apple TV is the only major omission for Spotify's footprint? Amazon Echos integrate with Spotify; I think Google Home does too. I don't think you can say that very often for the reverse. People do notice this sort of lock-in, and start noticing that their frends have Spotify and can run it pretty much everywhere, and so Spotify is the first one people check out. Generally people aren't super price-sensitive at this price level, outside of students, and students get some huge discount deals from Spotify.

Roku is the opposite side of the same strategy: everyone keeps buying them even though their interfaces and app ports are generally less polished, the hardware often less capable, than much of the competition. It's offset by being simple and well-understood (ever see someone try to use that Apple TV remote touchpad for the first time?) and by running pretty much every TV/streaming app out there.