Wow, you got back to me very quickly. So what did your musician friend say?

Ken Parks, CEO of Spotify, said “Piracy was sort of ingrained in that culture (in reference to pirating programs like Napster). But now Spotify is ingrained in that culture in a way that’s reduced piracy greatly. It’s removed the incentive to pirate.”

Spotify told British MPs in a parliamentary inquiry that raising its monthly subscription above £9.99 could “push users into piracy” using the piracy threat to resist price increases that would have meant higher royalties for artists.

Spotify was founded in 2008, a moment when the music industry had been devastated by online piracy. Revenue had already dropped from $14.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion by 2008.

Spotify has since added filters that cut royalty payments to tracks that don’t reach a certain stream threshold, further adding pressure to smaller artists who had the least leverage to begin with.

The rise of piracy led directly to the creation and power of streaming services like Spotify. Need me to spell anything else out for you?

Edit: Waaaaaiting for a response!