While Spotify will continue exploring live music options on its main app, the company is axing its standalone live-audio app Spotify Live, which was launched as a response to Clubhouse’s soaring popularity. The app was originally called Locker Room in 2021 when Spotify bought out its creator Betty Labs, rebranding it to Greenroom which later turned into Spotify Live.
Locker Room was originally intended to be a sports-centric Clubhouse-like app. Spotify ended up paying something to the tune of $62 million to acquire Betty Labs in March 2021 and promised to evolve the app into an “enhanced live audio experience for a wider range of creators and fans”, rebranding the app to Spotify Greenroom and relaunching it later in June 2021.
Spotify commissioned several radio-style live shows on sports, music, entertainment and lifestyle before renaming the app again in April 2022 into its final form, Spotify Live and integrating it into the main Spotify app.
That said, the Clubhouse fad quickly died down as the world recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. Facebook, who had rushed to launch its own live audio feature also pulled back. Spotify ended up having to cancel multiple live original shows, and now the entire category seems to be getting the boot.
While podcasts ended up being a hit for Spotify, $62 million is quite a hefty sum to pay just for abandoning a project a few short years later. This is a major setback for the streaming service as it looks to expand beyond traditional audio streaming with a recently reinvented user interface and focus on other content instead of just serving users music.
All hope is not lost yet though. A Spotify spokesperson told Music Ally that while there is a future for “live fan-creator interactions in the Spotify ecosystem, based on Spotify’s learnings “it no longer makes sense as a standalone app”. For now, Spotify will continue to explore moving forward to “Facilitate live interactions between artists and fans”.
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