The founder of Spotify, Daniel Ek has spoken out about the service, including Taylor Swift’s removal of her music from it.

He said: “I started this company to help the music industry, not get vilified by them,” referring to Swift.

He went on to point out his belief that that her decision to pull her music from the site has led to the recent flare in her success.
“Her YouTube streams went through the roof. What that tells me is the audience that was listening to Taylor Swift on Spotify went on YouTube to do it instead."

This makes sense but the whole reason for Taylor Swift pulling her music from Spotify in the first place was so that the public would find it more difficult to access her music for free, forcing them to do so through other subscription services. In doing this, it really seems that all she managed to do was to make Spotify look better and making herself look like a temperamental diva.

Ek also addressed the upcoming Apple streaming service and what it would mean to Spotify in the future: “Apple will probably be pretty successful, but it doesn't have to be at the expense of Spotify. If we think of this as an opportunity instead of trying to maximize the piece of pie we have today, the music industry will be many, many times bigger, and there won't be any arguments about how many percent we pay. When Apple starts doing streaming, streaming will start growing even faster.”

Ek seems to be very much a “glass half full” kind of person and his positivity will most certainly put Spotify in good stead for the future. As he points out, the streaming market is expanding and if the company is to survive, it needs a positive influence such as Ek to drive it.