The Spotify Shuffle: Why Streaming Giants Keep Stumbling
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has announced he’s stepping aside to become executive chairman. That supposedly lateral move may not have aroused comment, had markets not immediately punished Spotify’s stock. Shares slid over 3 percent in premarket trading; no small hiccup for a company that depends on constant investor confidence to maintain its “growth at all costs” posture.
The official story is that nothing’s really changing. Ek says he already delegated much of the day-to-day to his lieutenants Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström back in 2023. This move, he assures us, is just “formalizing” what was already in practice. His new focus? “The long arc.”
That’s the kind of vague, hand-waving rhetoric designed to calm investors. But when the founder of a company synonymous with modern streaming has to clarify that his new role “isn’t ceremonial,” you know investors smell trouble. And they should.
Spotify is no scrappy startup anymore. It’s the world’s biggest music streaming platform, with over 700 million subscribers, 100 million songs, and millions of podcasts and audiobooks. On paper, those are empire numbers. But an empire built on wafer-thin margins is an empire waiting to crack.
Spotify has been trying to diversify for years; pushing into podcasting, flirting with audiobooks, even gesturing at A.I.
Why? Because the core business model is fundamentally unstable.
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Streaming music is an efficiency sink. Consumers pay less than the cost of a single CD per month for access to virtually every album ever made. Record labels take the lion’s share. Spotify passes pennies to artists.
See the problem? That model only works if subscriber growth never stops.
And the instant that investors perceive even a hint of slowdown, Spotify’s meticulously cultivated facade drops.
Ek stepping back and creating a dual-CEO structure looks less like a sign of stability and more like musical chairs at the corporate level. When companies insist they’re “just formalizing” leadership, it’s code for internal strain.
Consider the wider context: Spotify’s podcast bets haven’t delivered the promised profits. High-profile deals with celebrity hosts have been quietly wound down. Staff have been laid off. Users are increasingly grumbling about an app cluttered with non-music features.
The Spotify of 2025 is trying to be all things to all users and succeeding at none. A split CEO structure will only accelerate that failure.
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Spotify likes to present itself as the company that saved the music industry. In truth, it centralized distribution under a new monopoly and trained listeners to see music as a cheap commodity.
What was once a purchase—a deliberate exchange of money for an album you owned—has become a rental. And as with all rentals, the landlord sets the rules.
Independent artists now face a brutal reality: Spotify exposure is worth less than a tip jar. Entire careers depend on the whims of playlists, algorithms, and opaque backend deals between tech platforms and record labels.
And as platforms stumble, artists are the first to suffer.
We’ve been here before. Netflix once looked unassailable. Now its growth is flat; its reputation battered after insulting its viewers one time too many. Facebook was once too big to fail. Now it’s the Sick Old Man of the Internet, cannibalized by younger platforms.
Spotify is running the same script. Its Explosion Phase carried it through two decades. But the line can’t go up forever. When the curve flattens, inevitability sets in.
Investors are nervous because they know streaming doesn’t have a clear long game. Spotify’s is banking on expansion into Asia and Africa. But those developing markets’ infrastructure, income levels, and cultural habits don’t guarantee the same explosive adoption seen in Europe and North America. In other words, they’re counting on foreign growth to paper over the cracks in their house.
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Here’s the good news: Spotify’s decline doesn’t mean music is doomed.
On the contrary, it means the gatekeepers are once again faltering.
We’re already seeing the rise of direct-to-fan platforms like Gumroad, Patreon, and pre-Epic Games Bandcamp. Musicians are rediscovering the oldest truth in art: You don’t need a middleman to reach your audience.
The more streaming giants stumble, the more chances independent creators will have to reclaim control of their work. But artists can only seize that chance if they stop equating exposure on a megaplatform with success.
The lesson of Spotify is much the same one Ray Kroc learned: Don’t rent your career; own the land you build on.
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Daniel Ek says he’ll be focusing on Spotify’s “long arc.” That phrase may comfort investors. But history shows that the long arc of unwieldy, investor-fueled tech platforms is short indeed.
Spotify did change the music industry, but not for the better. And like every corporate giant that restructured entertainment around itself, it will eventually collapse under its own weight.
When it does, artists who prepared for independence will thrive. Those who bet their future on someone else’s platform will be left holding the bag.
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Brian Niemeier is a best-selling novelist, editor, and Dragon Award winner with over a decade in newpub. For direct, in-person writing and editing insights, join his Patreon.