Criticism of Spotify not think his fans deserved the low quality they were receiving, and said it was bad for his music. Young's music has since returned to Spotify and other streaming services. In response, Spotify claims that they are benefiting the music business by "migrating them away from piracy and less monetized platforms, and allowing them to generate far greater royalties than before" by offering a free, ad-supported service tier, and then encouraging users to opt into the paid subscription. In June 2012, Charles Caldas, CEO of the Merlin Network (a representative body for over 10,000 independent labels), clarified that Spotify pays
Spotify December 2016, Drake's just-under 26 million monthly listeners were overtaken by the Weeknd's 36.068 million. Later that month, Drake's song "One Dance" became the first song to hit one billion streams on Spotify. Upon its release in August 2017, the single "Look What You Made Me Do" by Taylor Swift earned over eight million streams within 24 hours, breaking the record for the most single-day streams for a track. On June 19, 2018, XXXTentacion's hit single "Sad!" broke Swift's single-day streaming record, amassing 10.4 million streams the day after he was fatally shot in Florida. In March 2011, Spotify announced