Spotify have tried a lot of things over the years to try and change their abysmal record when it comes to making any money out of their website. They’ve tried paying out insultingly low royalties to artists.
They’ve tried podcasts, paying a fortune for the likes of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and so on in the process. They’ve even tried lowering the aforementioned royalties even further in exchange for a nice bit of algorithmic exposure action.
None of it has worked. And you get the feeling that Spotify are getting increasingly embarrassed about the fact they’ve never made a penny of profit since their inception in 2006. So, Daniel Ek has decided to create the equivalent of the Amazon Echo for the car.
Its name? The Car Thing. Seriously. All those staff are on average wage in the six figures, and that was the best they could come up with. Dear oh dear oh dear.
Awful name aside, the idea isn’t that bad. You hook it up to your smartphone, and it uses either wi-fi or mobile data to work. You control it with your voice. It sounds alright, but I do have one question.
What if you’re in an area where the phone signal is, to put it mildly, a bit ropey? Would it mean that the song would keep cutting out? And would you have to increase the amount of data on your mobile phone in order for it to work properly?
I’m undecided on this one. I just hope that Daniel Ek has finally hit on something which can actually turn a profit. He might do well to remember that Spotify does not have a God given right to exist…
