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Spotify Reaches 113 Million Paid Subscribers

Andrew Orr ·

Spotify announced that it reached 113 million paid subscribers around the world, and it’s growing twice as fast as Apple Music.

We continue to feel very good about our competitive position in the market. Relative to Apple, the publicly available data shows that we are adding roughly twice as many subscribers per month as they are. Additionally, we believe that our monthly engagement is roughly 2x as high and our churn is at half the rate.

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Australia, Please Don't Scan My Face When I Download Porn

Andrew Orr ·

The U.K. recently canceled its plans for an age filter on porn websites, but now Australia has taken up the mantle. It wants internet users to verify their identity using facial recognition before viewing pornography.

Writing in a submission to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs’ inquiry, launched in September, Home Affairs said it could provide a “suite of identity-matching services”.

One example highlighted by the department was the use of the Face Verification Service to prevent a child using their parent’s driver licence to get around any age verification.

At this point, me writing about porn is a running joke now. But stuff like this raises awareness on important privacy issues.

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That Apple Bluetooth Tile Product to be Named 'AirTag'

Andrew Orr ·

There’s a 99% probability that Apple’s new Bluetooth product will be named AirTag, according to assets found in iOS 13.2 which was just released today.

A folder within the filesystem for the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system possibly confirms the name “AirTag” for the new device, which will be paired with a user’s iPhone just like AirPods and will allow users to track any item using the Find My app.

I currently have a bet going that AirTag will be released tomorrow.

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Spotify Reaches 113 Million Paid Subscribers

Charlotte Henry ·

Spotify has hit 113 million paid subscribers, according to its latest financial update, Music Business Worldwide reported.  Apple Music hit 50 million paid subscribers in the final quarter of 2018.

The subscriber numbers were confirmed in a Q3 financial update today (October 28), in which SPOT confirmed that its premium subs count was up 31% year on year (on the same three months, to end of September, in 2018). The 113m is comfortably within the firm’s guidance range of 110-114m for Q3. The average paying Spotify subscriber across the world (ARPU) in Q3 2019 paid €4.67, down 1% YoY, but actually down 3% excluding the impact from foreign exchange rates. SPOT’s global Q3 Monthly Active User count (248m) was up 30% year-on-year, and up by 16m people quarter-on-quarter.

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President Trump Allegedly Ordered Defence Secretary Mattis to 'Screw Amazon'

Charlotte Henry ·

On Friday, the Pentagon awarded a huge contract to Microsoft. It had been expected to go to Amazon. A former aide to  Jim Mattis alleged that President Donald Trump told the Defense Secretary to “screw Amazon,” MotherJones reported.

Guy Snodgrass, one-time aide to former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, alleged in a book that was published only recently that Trump had indeed attempted to intervene. Here’s Task & Purpose, via Jake Tapper: Trump called Mattis in the summer of 2018 and directed him to “screw Amazon” out of a chance to bid on a $10 billion cloud networking contract. Snodgrass writes: “Relaying the story to us during Small Group, Mattis said, ‘We’re not going to do that. This will be done by the book, both legally and ethically.” The Department of Defense defended its decision in a statement yesterday, saying that that everything was mad legit: “The acquisition process was conducted in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.” and totally cool and stuff: All parties, the statement said, “were treated fairly and evaluated consistently with the solicitation’s stated evaluation criteria.”