Emily Flippen

It's the audio listening platform that everybody loves to hate.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And I will say, if you had alternatives, maybe you would go to alternatives.

But Spotify continues to deliver a superior product that people continue to flock to.

And to your point, Jason, there aren't a lot of alternatives out there that's

offer that superior product.

That's part of the reason why they added a record number of monthly users this quarter.

I think they hit 290 million paid subscribers.

It's been a really rough year for Spotify prior to reporting earnings this season, but this quarter was incredible.

I mean, what stood out to me was an operating margin north of 15%.

There's always this overhang about Spotify of, okay, good.

They have the users, they have the engagement, but can they monetize it?

This quarter showed the highest operating margin ever for Spotify.

That's what stood out to me.

But Jason, to your point, what stood out to you?

I was a little surprised to see ad revenue relatively weak this quarter.

Now, this quarter is generally bad for ad revenue, but my hopes are high that the rest of 2026 might be good for them.

This is a midterm election year, so ad spend generally tends to have a bit of a rebound, or I think expectations are for it to have one.

Whether or not that ad spend goes to Spotify, I think, remains a question mark.