[donarb]

Yes, it's bad news. The article states that their losses have more than doubled in the past year from $220M to $460M. Their average revenue per user has dropped 12% to $5.72 and Spotify says that won't be getting better anytime soon. Most of their "new" customers are the result of family deals and promotions. Spotify thinks they can grow their way to profitability, but they are competing with Apple Music, which doesn't have to be profitable.

[scarface74]

I don’t see how they can grow thier way to profitability with negative marginal costs. You grow your way to profitability if you have high fixed cost and low marginal costs. But, they have to pay such exorbitant licensing fees that thier marginal cost is high. The family plans are making the situation worse.

Once Apple introduced the family plans, Spotify was toast.

And finally, there is another level of complexity when you have to go to their website to pay instead of just using an in app purpose. They were one of the top grossing apps when they had in app purchases - even when they charged more to offset Apple’s 30% cut.