In The Playlist — Netflix’s dramatized retelling of how Spotify came to life, there’s a scene that keeps echoing in my mind. Spotify’s legal counsel, Petra Hansson, asks her coworkers to string beads into bracelets. Once they finish, she walks up and asks, “Would you pay to keep what you made?”

And just like that, it clicks: users don’t just want access to content, they want ownership of experience.

That, to me, is Spotify’s genius.

Music Wasn’t the Product. The Feeling Was.

When Spotify launched, piracy was king… Lol, it still is!

There was Napster, LimeWire, Pirate Bay — people weren’t paying for music because they didn’t need to. The music industry was bleeding, record labels were panicking, and artists were furious. No business model seemed to make sense.

Then Spotify came in and didn’t just offer music, they offered something more personal, Playlists… Discovery… Flow… Identity. They realized users wouldn’t necessarily pay for songs, but they’d pay to keep the little universes they curated — their playlists. The experience became more valuable than the individual parts.

This is peak emotional design. The tech made it possible, but the feeling made it stick.

They Fought Battles Most Wouldn’t Dare

The Playlist doesn’t romanticize the journey. It shows how messy, relentless, and political it all was. Spotify had to go to war on multiple fronts:

Music executives who didn’t trust them
Legal systems that weren’t built for streaming
Developers tasked with building a platform that couldn’t lag, not even once (I could feel their plight from my couch as I watched)
Artists skeptical about fair compensation

And through it all, Martin Lorentzon, Spotify’s eccentric and relentless co-founder/investor, never stopped betting on the vision. While Daniel Ek was deep in the product and code, Martin kept the lights on, the funds flowing, and the belief alive, even when everyone else thought they were building a fantasy. They fought these battles knowing they were building a bridge between creators and users that had never existed before.

That tension between innovation and regulation, speed and fairness is what shaped them. It’s the kind of tension any creative or product builder can relate to. And sometimes, what keeps a bold idea alive isn’t just the vision, it’s the person crazy enough to fund it again even after it goes south.

Why Emotional Ownership Still Wins

It’s been over a decade since those battles, but the core idea that drove Spotify’s early success still holds true today:

People don’t just want access — they want to feel something.
They want to build. Curate. Share. Own.

Spotify’s design leans into that beautifully. From the moment you open the app, it doesn’t yell at you with features, it vibes with you. The Daily Mixes feel like inside jokes with your algorithm. The “Discover Weekly” playlist feels like a friend who really gets you. Even the colors, layout, and subtle transitions suggest: “Hey, take your time. We’ve got what you need.”

That’s not just good UI… That’s empathetic product thinking, and it shows.

Interactions That Flow, Not Just Function

Good products click. Great products flow.

Spotify rarely feels like a series of screens. It feels like you’re inside a rhythm, moving from artist to artist, genre to genre, mood to mood.
And that fluidity? It’s intentional.

Designers call it sequencing — the art of building interfaces that don’t just inform, but carry users through an experience. Just like a great DJ, Spotify knows when to raise the tempo, when to loop something familiar, and when to drop something new. That’s rare… that’s craft.

Here’s something The Playlist reminds us; Vision is just the beginning. Building something truly great takes more than talent, it takes collaboration. Spotify worked because different people — coders, lawyers, artists, investors, came together and played their part in sync.

The same applies to product teams. If interaction design isn’t your thing? Find someone who lives for that detail. If storytelling isn’t your strength, partner with someone who can bring the soul into your solution.

Spotify Didn’t Just Win, It Landed

In the end, Spotify didn’t succeed just by having the right product-market fit. They succeeded by giving users something they could build with. Something they could see themselves in, something that felt somehow like theirs.

And that’s what great design does, It doesn’t just deliver value… It delivers meaning.

Spotify’s business model wasn’t just smart, It was felt! And for me, that’s what makes it one worth admiring.

Why I Admire Spotify’s Business Model, Especially After Watching The Playlist