Farhad’s Week in Tech: Spotify’s Tough Road, and Our Pile of Reader Feedback<br />And it’s always going to have huge content costs; Spotify has to pay for music every time it’s<br />streamed, whereas video streaming companies like Netflix usually pay for content just once.<br />Snap, the maker of Snapchat, has been dogged by sluggish user growth since it<br />hit the market last summer; its stock price is still below its $17 I. P.O.<br />It isn’t doing an initial public offering but instead a novel model called a direct stock listing —<br />but let’s forget about the mechanics for now and consider its prospects.<br />Because music streaming is all the company does, it has an incentive to keep improving its service; Spotify,<br />I’ve noticed, adds excellent features faster than most of its bigger competitors add basic ones.<br />It’s one of few examples of a thriving consumer company that sits outside the clutches of large American tech firms.<br />Last month, I asked readers to send in ideas for tech stories they’d like to see covered in The Times.<br />The company is beset by wealthy competitors, is losing tons of money, and its business model does not offer an obvious path to huge profits.<br />The company has 159 million active users, 71 million of whom pay for a subscription to its ad-free service.<br />After months of windup, the music-streaming company filed documents this week to sell shares on the New York Stock Exchange.
