Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden to provide an online music streaming service as an alternative to piracy networks. It launched initially to friends and family in 2007 before opening to the public in 2008. By 2009 it had over 8 million users across 6 markets and 150 employees. Spotify aimed to address the challenges of the music industry's response to piracy by creating a service that provided ubiquitous access to music across devices through a subscription model that was seen as a better experience than free alternatives.