Spotify turned a profit for the first time in 2024

Ahh, so that's what all those price hikes were about. In 2023, Spotify asked subscribers for more money for the first time since its U.S. launch in 2011. CEO Daniel Ek clearly developed a taste for it because the company went on to raise prices again in 2024. And whaddya know—they actually turned a profit for the first time last year. That's just the cost of living through streaming wars, we guess, although the company's decision to lay off 17% of its staff last year couldn't have hurt.

Spotify reportedly posted a quarterly profit of about €367 million (about $380 million) last quarter, a massive jump from a net loss of €70 million the year before (per TheWrap). That contributed to a total annual profit of €1.14 billion (about $1.18 billion) for the year. 

The company also added 11 million premium subscribers—a company record—last quarter, pushing its total to 263 million subscribers overall. According to the company, that massive growth was partly driven by—you guessed it—podcasts. In completely unrelated news, the number one podcast of the year was The Joe Rogan Experience (again) so, uh, just try not to think too hard about that one. 

Of course, a decent chunk of that money is going back to the artists you subscribe to the platform for in the first place. The company reported that it paid out $10 billion to the music industry in 2024, ten times more than it had a decade prior. That's undeniably impressive, but it doesn't mean that everyone is getting their fair share of the pie. Songwriters—even this year's Grammy-nominated group—are still getting screwed by the company's pay structure, with four out of five choosing not to attend Spotify's annual party in their honor this year. "It is very nice to be individually honored, but it is better for me and my entire songwriter community to be paid fairly for our art." said Jessie Jo Dillon, one of the nominees, of her decision to boycott the party. "There are no songs without songwriters."