Spotify removes music download feature Daniel Ek, Spotify's founder and chief executive, said: "Users tell us they don't know what to listen to, and artists tell us they want to connect more closely with fans. So we're creating a new and personalised way of finding great music. He said the service had 24 million active users, a fifth of whom paid to use the service. Ek added that Spotify had paid more than $500 million to artists in royalties and that there were more than one billion playlists on the service.