Spotify is shutting down Spotify Live. Recently known as Spotify Greenroom, the independent live sound application emerged from Spotify’s $62 million obtaining of Betty Labs in 2021. The startup’s Locker Room app was renamed Spotify Greenroom shortly after the deal was completed, and the experience’s scope was expanded to include topics other than sports. Then, precisely a year prior, the streaming monster renamed the stage once more and coordinated a portion of its usefulness into the fundamental Spotify application.
A Spotify spokesperson says, “After a period of experimentation and learnings around how Spotify users interact with live audio, we’ve made the decision to sunset the Spotify Live app.” Live fan-creator interactions, in our opinion, have a place in the Spotify ecosystem in the future; However, it no longer makes sense as a stand-alone application in light of our findings. We will continue to investigate the artist-focused use case of “listening parties,” which we have seen promising results in, in order to facilitate live interactions between fans and artists.
Engadget inquired about Spotify’s response but received no response immediately. TechCrunch, on the other hand, was informed by the company that the shutdown was confirmed. Daniel Ek, Spotify’s CEO, predicted that live audio would become commonplace when the company first announced its move into the medium in 2021. “Just like Stories with video where every major platform has them as one way for its audience to communicate with each other, I see live audio similarly,” he said at the time. “I expect all the platforms to have it.”
However, at the end of last year, a number of live audio shows were canceled, indicating a reduction in the company’s previous goals. It is important to note that Spotify is not the only business to abandon the format. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced in May that it was discontinuing a number of audio products, including Soundbites, the 2021-launched short-form audio sharing tool.