Zennström: Kazaa Survived Early On Through Controversial User-Tracking Ads
Niklas Zennström · Skype and Kazaa: Niklas Zennström · Mar 17, 2025 · at 21:01
Niklas Zennström, co-founder of Kazaa, explains the business model and revenue stream that kept Kazaa solvent without venture funding.
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“Well, our business model was advertisement so we put in ads, we had banners, you know in, in Casa, in the software, and it was something, and that was something that was, like, controversial at the time, you know, because a lot, some of those things were also tracking users' behavior, and at the time, people did not like of course, now everything you do is being tracked all the time, so now it's ok, but at the time, it was, like, controversial, and it was a bit of an issue, because when people use, like, a peer-to-peer software, and then there was advertisement there. There was something that people didn't really like so much, but we actually, because our costs were so low we just, you know, when it started to grow with advertisement, just we could sustain ourselves, actually.”
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