Spotify’s playlists have altered the music industry in unexpected ways

A few years after Spotify’s founding in 2006, executives commissioned a study. It revealed that many listeners were using the streaming service as background accompaniment to the quotidian activities, from workouts to ironing, that filled their days—and nights. (Sleeping playlists boomed.) Rather than use it actively as a digital jukebox, many were happy to outsource to Spotify the work of deciding what to hear next. The company hired editors to build playlists and tweaked its platform to nudge passive listeners towards them. Spotify came to see its only competition as “silence”, according to one insider.