“There are consequences that need to be thought through,” Ong says. “If every country adopts a cap [on the promotion of foreign artists in order to boost local performers], it will have an impact on international growth. Australia has a small population, so there’s a ceiling there. What we’re hearing from artists is that being able to have an international audience and a touring career outside of Australia is very important to them.” Given the decline in sales of physical music formats, which has reduced the income of many artists, should Spotify increase its royalty payments? “I was there when peer-to-peer file sharing [became popular two decades ago] and I saw the decline of recorded music,” Ong says. “That has been completely reversed by streaming, and the royalty payouts have never been higher … we paid US$10 billion to rights-holders in 2024 and US$5 billion of that went to independent artists and labels. But there is a misconception about the payouts – because we pay directly to rights-holders, we don’t have control over how a major label or publisher decides to split that money with their artists.” Born in the UK to a Persian mother and Chinese father, Ong and her family spent time in Iran before fleeing the 1978-79 revolution. Eventually, they settled in Australia, where Ong studied music at Western Sydney University. “I had two passions as a child: music and technology,” she says. “I was told I’d have to focus on one or the other, but I didn’t really buy that. I always felt they’d converge at some point.” Each day, Ong – who has a team of 130 music editors reporting to her – makes a point of switching off her phone’s notifications, lying on the floor and listening to music for at least three hours. It’s a process she believes is essential to help discover and promote new artists, despite Spotify’s use of artificial intelligence to recommend songs to its users.