
Will Spotify Ruin Podcasting? - chottocharaii
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/will-spotify-ruin-podcasting
======
rahuldottech
Article is definitely worth a read.

> From 2014 to 2020, Spotify bought 15 companies, companies that build
> everything from data analytics to music and audio production tools to audio
> ad tools to licensing platforms, and podcasting networks.

> Spotify is directly mimicking Google and Facebook, and attempting to roll up
> power over digital audio markets the way Google and Facebook did over the
> internet. It has already done so in music.

As it exists today, the podcasting ecosystem is a very open system, with
publicly accessible feeds and the ability to use any app/player.

I'm very afraid that if Spotify keeps this up, it's going to lead to a very
fragmented system similar to the film/TV streaming industry (Netflix, Prime,
Apple TV, et al.) which would require you to install proprietary apps and pay
for multiple subscriptions to listen to stuff. Likely several different apps
for different shows and companies.

Unfortunately, it appears that Spotify is motivated by increased profits and
getting a market monopoly to completely destroy the open system that we have
today, which will also make it undoubtedly harder for newcomers to enter the
industry.

Right now Spotify complains about how Apple apps have an unfair advantage on
Apple's platform, but they're doing the same thing. Spotify podcasts have an
unfair advantage on Spotify's platform. I don't believe the platform should
also be a content creator. This is really shitty of Spotify to do.

~~~
scarface74
Spotify isn’t doing anything to podcasts. An audio program that doesn’t
publish an RSS feed that I can subscribe to in my podcast player of choice
isn’t a podcast. It’s also not something I’m going to waste my time listening
to.

As far as Apple, Apple’s podcast directory and app are the very definition of
“open”. Apple just indexes publicly available submitted RSS feeds. When you
subscribe from Apple’s podcast app, the app itself polls the publishers RSS
feed and plays directly from the publisher’s servers.

You can also subscribe to a podcast directly from the app using the url to the
podcast - it doesn’t have to be in Apple’s directory.

Apple even offers a public API of the podcast directory that can be used by
anyone on any platform.

~~~
chungus_khan
As much as I want that to be the case, "A television broadcast that doesn't
come in free over the airwaves isn't a broadcast show" type sentiments didn't
stop cable, and while cable started with a nicer, often ad-free offering, the
advantages faded as it grew, balkanization of channel offerings eventually
came, etc. Operating a local television station in the US today now requires
collaboration with these companies, and they have little incentive to work
effectively with smaller local players. They can get nationally syndicated
shows through their originating networks, and only really need to bow to local
interests at all for highly localized things like news (and even that's dying
rapidly).

These open spaces and preferred arrangements have to be defended or they will
die.

~~~
scarface74
Cable was never an ad free alternative. That’s a popular meme.

~~~
chungus_khan
A large number of premium, cable-exclusive channels were at one point.
Broadcast channels weren't, but that wasn't a disadvantage, and those premium
channels brought a lot to the table.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-
inv...](https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/26/arts/will-cable-tv-be-invaded-by-
commercials.html)

~~~
scarface74
Those few premium channels that you paid extra for on top of your regular
cable build were ad free and still are.

~~~
chungus_khan
Some of them are, especially movie-related ones, but special interest and news
channels generally run ads now. This also isn't really relevant to my point
and I never said that cable used to be ad-free, but rather that there used to
be a more prominent attraction to it due to some ad-free content offerings.

------
hombre_fatal
If Spotify can figure out how to make podcasters real money and save them from
begging for donos/Patreon/subs on every episode, it's going to make big waves
in the space.

Spotify annoys us, being used to free and open things on the hobbyist's dime,
but as we smugly advise on HN when it's convenient for us: sometimes you need
to shake up the business model. That's what Spotify might be able to pull off
for podcasters.

Not sure it will ruin anything, though. The people who prefer to beg for
donations in their podcast episodes are always free to do it. Our
unwillingness to support content creators is what ruins things and puts
everything behind an explicit paywall.

~~~
tartoran
Spotify managed to make musicians abismimal returns, why would it work any
differently for podcasts?

~~~
cm2012
Spotify pays more per listen than radio or YouTube.

~~~
blazzy
That still sounds like a bad model for paying artists. If I sign up for
Spotify and only listen to a few artists I'm fond of, those artists get next
to nothing of my subscription fees. Instead I'm subsidizing the payouts to
artists like Drake. Who I have nothing against, I'm just not listening to his
work.

~~~
tartoran
That’s the problem. The subscription fees should go towards what one listens
not average over all artists or some other kind of formula spotify came up
with. This could be like micropayemnts and i think would change the dynamics
quite a bit

~~~
pgm8705
I've always wondered why it isn't done like this. It doesn't seem like it
would make a difference to Spotify. Is it the record label forcing the current
model?

------
atoav
One of my favourite podcasts is moving to become _spotify exclusive_. It is
hard to put the betrayal I felt into words, when they first announced it.

I know it is a little silly and they probably do what is (in the short term)
the best financial decision for them, but I already accepted that this is it
and I won't listen to them anymore.

If you go _exclusive_ to any plattform you never do it _for_ your fans, but
essentially _against_ them. They might have a podcatcher they listen to you on
they used for years, which they now should change because you want to limit
the plattforms you are on.

The german podcast scene gladly seems to be quite resistant against these kind
of things and they say they earn more through direct donations than spotify
and/or audible is able to give them anyways.

Why would you voluntarily give up that freedom? And why is it so often US
podcasters who do it first (they are also much more plastered with ads)?

~~~
jakebasile
My experience exactly with Last Podcast on the Left, which is just now going
Spotify exclusive. The frustrating part is how many fans defend such an anti-
listener action.

~~~
milofeynman
It's a risk they'll take. Look at what happened to ninja and shroud when they
switched to mixer from twitch. They are probably down 70%+ on their viewers
(based on me checking in infrequently) and mixer isn't even walled off. It is
incredibly hard to wall off something in this age of plentiful entertainment
and maintain the viewers you once had.

~~~
raxxorrax
Twitch really could use some competition, but I thought their self-promotion
was a bit dishonest. They tried to portrait themselves as the underdog. True,
compared to twitch perhaps, but they are still owned by Microsoft. And on the
topic on content discrimination you probably wouldn't want that as a viewr.

------
hellotomyrars
I have a difficult time believing that, of all things, Podcasting is the thing
Spotify will/has ruined.

The Podcast ecosystem is very open, but the only monetization vehicle I know
of that has made a meaningful impact in the history of Podcasts is Midroll
(Which now looking up seems to be owned by Stitcher).

I know from listening to the Giant Bomb podcast for a decade that they had a
hard time justifying the podcast to the business-side of their operation for
years because it doesn't work in to a balance sheet.

Presumably that is less of an issue now and I hear Midroll-based ads on
literally every podcast I listen to.

I'd be much more worried about that than Spotify as far as monopoloization
goes.

This article leaves them out entirely, and it feels like it's almost done with
purpose to make the point they want.

~~~
asiachick
I don't know what "MidRoll" is but my podcasting software (and I'm assuming
all others) has +30sec -15sec buttons. I use them top skip every ad. Maybe I'm
an exception and most people listen to ads but I find it's trivial to skip
them so I do.

~~~
Tyr42
I'll skip, unless I'm driving and can't touch my phone to do so.

~~~
Intermernet
Not sure if this helps you, but I recently discovered that Android Auto
accepts voice controls for fast forward and rewind, despite not having UI
controls for the same. "fast forward 30 seconds" does what you expect it to
do.

------
CharlesW
Spotify isn't a podcasting platform. It's a proprietary audio platform that
uses podcast feeds as input.

The Spotify app isn't a podcast app — you can't play podcasts with it. You can
only play shows which have been imported via podcast feeds into their
proprietary platform.

If Spotify can continue to get folks talking about Spotify as a "podcasting"
platform, listening to "podcasts" on Spotify, etc. (and they've been very
successful in doing that judging from the posts in this thread), the world
will begin to forget that "podcasting" ever meant "open medium".

~~~
wanone
That's just being pedantic. I installed Spotify only for podcasts. It's also
the only app that seems to work with weak networks. Rest are terrible.

~~~
corobo
It's not pedantic though. Lets say you were a fan of Hello Internet (not
affiliated, I just subscribe to their private feed)

Run me through how you'd listen to their paid podcast "Goodbye Internet"[0] in
Spotify and I'll concede that Spotify is a podcast client.

[0]
[https://www.patreon.com/hellointernet](https://www.patreon.com/hellointernet)

and then it's also not a podcast provider. Run me through how I'd listen to
Gimlet's Academy[1] audio series in Overcast, and I'll concede that point too

[1]
[https://open.spotify.com/show/7hhEbl4DOMheWRunCUAla6?si=WFxE...](https://open.spotify.com/show/7hhEbl4DOMheWRunCUAla6?si=WFxEsdUZTrehOt3qg2OIWQ)

------
yreg
Marco, the creator of Overcast debates this situation from time to time on
Accidental Tech Podcast.

He recently said that Spotify doesn't seem to be as big an issue as they first
expected it to be. It turns out, that most users who listen to podcasts on
Spotify didn't listen to podcasts before.

So although Spotify has a sizeable chunk of the market, it didn't hurt the
other players much.

~~~
rahuldottech
Yeah, except Spotify exclusives. They're forcing us to use a proprietary
platform that's not accessible on all devices and operating systems (music
players, non-smart phones, etc). That goes against the very open spirit of
podcasting technology.

~~~
yreg
Yep, Stitcher.com does the same. It's a shame, I hope they won't suck too many
great podcasts up.

------
rchaud
> Recently, Spotify announced a new advertising service, Spotify Podcast Ads
> with what’s called ‘streaming ad insertion.’

Oh good, the Adsense-ification of podcast ads is now upon us. Why bother
having the talent read out the ads and maybe inject some improvisation and
humour into it, when we can just have the real-time-bidding system decide what
commercial you should see, based on whatever Spotify has stitched together
using all its data points.

~~~
pythonaut_16
On the other hand, the potential value to the Podcast is a better long term
revenue stream from old content.

Most likely a worse experience as listener though. And you could make the
argument it's worse for the ecosystem/community/relationship between Podcast
and listener as well.

------
hising
From a personal point-of-view I am more into the not so professional podcasts
and as soon as a popular podcast starts getting too serious and starts
sounding like any radio show out there, I lose interest. The same with
Youtube, I like the creativity and drive of people when they start a channel
or podcast about some subject they really enjoy. I think a lot of podcasts
dies for me when I notice that they are more focused on getting a bigger
audience and cater for more than what they did in the first place. I realize
why, it is about having the money to be able to do it for a living, but from a
personal point-of-view, I totally lose interest when stuff gets too
professional. So, in my mind, Spotify wont kill podcasting, they will help
some podcasters to gain a living from it and maybe become mainstream, but
there will always be room for an open podcast community when new podcasts
start from a desire and interest in a specific area of interest and not from
what a mega-company think will gain a lot of listeners.

------
iamEAP
I was always somewhat confused about why Spotify got into the podcast space,
until I tried Spotify’s ad platform: unless you’re advertising music or
specific types of consumer goods, targeting based on podcast category is an
order of magnitude more powerful than just artist/genre.

~~~
perpetualpatzer
The other piece is that the negotiating supply of podcasts is less
concentrated than that of music. With music, if you want to reduce licensing
fees, you have to negotiate with a label, who could meaningfully undermine
your product by pulling all their artists.

Podcasts are closer to YouTube... few podcasters have have scale to demand
terms, having one walk away over terms is less of a problem because you don't
playlist podcasts in the way you do music, lots of podcasters in it for love
of the game or starting out hoping to hit it big (and willing to forgo ad
revenue for audience).

------
bloogsy
I think it could possibly ruin the 'big budget', glossy podcasts in the mould
of Serial as they take more money to produce and I'd imagine they are more
reliant on ad income.

It may also be more accurate to suggest that Spotify will ruin American
podcasting - I can't see UK podcasts (particularly those that are BBC-funded)
going spotify only, and iPhones (and probably by extension the podcasts app)
are only a huge market share in the US.

Here's hoping that the independently funded and smaller podcasts will continue
to exist outisde of Spotify.

~~~
Traster
Yeah the BBC podcasts aren't going to go exclusive, but instead they've
launched their own podcast app and piss everyone off by going on about it
constantly.

~~~
boygobbo
They might go exclusive to BBC Sounds. The BBC has already started pulling its
services from those they perceive to be competitors, like TuneIn[1] and Google
Podcast[2].

[1] [https://radiotoday.co.uk/2019/08/bbc-to-pull-all-radio-
servi...](https://radiotoday.co.uk/2019/08/bbc-to-pull-all-radio-services-
from-tunein-uk-platform/)

[2] [https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/03/27/bbc-removes-
podcasts...](https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/03/27/bbc-removes-podcasts-
google-podcasts-and-assistant)

------
infynyxx2
Overcast is so much better than Spotify for podcasts. I still use Spotify for
all my music but gave up listening podcasts; it’s not just intuitive as
overcast.

------
buzzdenver
This might be a noob question, but what is the right way to listen to podcasts
on Spotify? They recently bought the company that produces half of the
podcasts I listen to, Gimlet, so I wanted to see if it was a better experience
using them. I devoted 5 minutes to it, but so far I wasn't able to figure out
the basics, like subscribing to podcasts and seeing what's in the queue to
listen to.

------
kristofferR
Someone should create a service that generates RSS streams of Spotify
exclusive podcasts.

It would definitively be illegal, but that could be solved with proper opsec.
It would definitively not be immoral.

~~~
Angostura
> It would definitively be illegal

Would it? Just a list of links to episodes in machine readable form? I can't
see what issues it raise, unless it ignores a NOROBOTS

~~~
74ls00
The RSS feed would need links to the audio files - I suspect that Spotify only
allows access to those through its app much as YouTube does through its
app/website (this is what stops YouTube video podcast feeds from becoming a
thing)

~~~
frodprefect
[https://youtube-dl.org/](https://youtube-dl.org/)

Always a workaround.

~~~
74ls00
Well my assumption was how it could be achieved without violating Terms of
Service

------
spondyl
I'll be the first to admit that I moved from Pocket Casts to Spotify at the
start of the year, when I saw that my Year in Review featured podcasts.

That's all it took, plus the convenience of having one singular app for music
+ podcasts.

The only two podcasts I can't get on Spotify are Joe Rogan (I listen to like 1
out of every 500 episodes so will just download an MP3 or whatever) and a
private RSS feed for Popular Front which I back on Patreon.

It gives me the shits though that the Podcast section feels like an MVP still.
There are no public API endpoints (not sure any podcast apps have them
publically to be fair) and the desktop experience is subpar at best. Not even
sure the play interval syncs up

Perhaps I should take this opportunity to reassess my choice and move back to
Pocket Casts. I was one of the original purchasers so I have a free lifetime
subscription it seems.

It looks like they have some desktop apps too (UWP + Mac) which seems new

------
AJRF
As it stands Spotify apps are trash for listening to (or finding) anything
other than popular music.

Podcasts, Classical music, or anything that doesn't fit the mould of Artist ->
Album -> Track just doesn't fit their domain models.

------
philips
Has anyone seen a way to disable podcasts in Spotify?

~~~
wyxuan
No. They want people to listen to more podcasts and less music

~~~
pier25
Why is that?

~~~
jacobobryant
You don't have to deal with record labels for one thing.

I had a conversation once with someone who was doing a music startup for a
while. He said his startup pivoted to podcasts (specifically for
executives/business people) because it was easier to make money.

~~~
wyxuan
yep. in the time it takes for you to go through 10 songs, where spotify does a
mini payout each time listen, you can listen to a podcast, where spotify not
only makes $$ through ad placement thanks to anchor, they get the content for
free

------
pochamago
My experience has only been that Spotify is another good place to submit a
podcast to. I use a Transistor as my host, and it makes sense to publish
everywhere, since once you set it up anyone can listen to you regardless of
what their main listening hub is. Different podcasts have different
demographics, some of mine have thrived on Spotify, some get almost nothing
from it. I don't see them being capable of becoming a monopoly

------
dontbenebby
I'm unclear what happens if I listen to podcasts in Spotify as a paying
subscriber - am I still tracked?

It troubles me that if a favorite podcast goes "Spotify Exclusive" I may not
be able to listen to it without being subjected to invasive targeted
behavioral tracking.

I'm not opposed to ads in podcasts (if they're disclosed) but to be tracked
etc, especially as a paying customer, really squicks me out.

~~~
dnbcameron
Yes. Spotify will insert targeted ads into your podcast.

~~~
dontbenebby
The insertion isn't my concern, it's that they do tracking to decide what to
insert :/

------
jccalhoun
Spotify won't ruin podcasts any more than apple has. Right now if someone only
posts a link to apple podcasts and not their rss then it makes it much less
likely that I'll check out their show because I use android. The same thing
will happen if someone posts a link to spotify. If you make it harder for me
to get your product then I'll be less likely to bother.

~~~
matrixagent
Good luck getting a non-tech person listening to a podcast by supplying them
with an RSS link. I don't mean to be snarky, and I hate it from the bottom of
my heart, but it's the sad reality. For 99,999% of people, a RSS link is not
just making it "harder" to get to the product, it's making it impossible. They
won't bother.

~~~
jccalhoun
Good luck getting an android person to listen to you podcast by supplying them
with a link to apple.

You don't have to just have one or the other. Have all the links. They are
free.

~~~
matrixagent
Completely agreed, your comment made it sound like you were suggesting _only_
RSS instead of any vendor-specific links to me, but I misunderstood. :)

------
adventist
I think it has to do with the RSS standard. As a podcaster ("Eyes of Reason")
I like Spotify because I can see things like the age, gender and location of
where my listeners are coming from as well as see things like how long they
listened. If we can update the RSS Protocol to have these features then it
would prevent this sort of Payola and agglomeration from happening.

~~~
Angostura
Maybe regularly ask your listeners to fill in a voluntary survey, if helps
support you. I'm sure many would.

FWIW, Spotify _thinks_ it knows my age and gender, but it really doesn't.

------
billpg
I use an RSS based podcast player for my drive to work and back. If a show
doesn't have an RSS, I can't listen to it.

I'm not going to jump to someone's website or switch between player apps while
I'm driving along the M1. If you want to listen to your show, I'd need to
switch player apps entirely and listen to all my shows on that other player.

------
chadlavi
If you don't want this to happen, support small podcast networks (which are
essentially unions) like Maximum Fun.

------
apotatopot
Sounds like they purchased Anchor for the ad insertion feature. IMO, as a
podcast producer, this is a great thing. That said, Anchor currently lets us
publish our podcast almost everywhere we'd like to. I can totally see Anchor
being turned into Spotify: the podcast host, then that being done away with. I
guess that's when we leave Anchor. I don't know, though. I hate having to run
ads and how we never get support, but have reached something like 150 plays a
week in a year.

I hate to sound like a jerk, but if people paid producers instead of
subscribing to companies, the world may be a better place.

------
ejz
The short answer: no.

You will see some content go exclusive, but this is an inevitable feature of
content-based markets. It's very difficult to differentiate yourself, and if
you don't have your own content the content holders have the leverage to
completely own you. It's what happened to Netflix. No one is complaining about
them having their own shows.

Spotify might even help. The US podcast market is stunted by the lack of good
apps. Maybe with the power and money of a Spotify we can make a podcast app
that lets providers make way more money, get way better analytics, and see
actual feature-level innovation.

------
JohnFen
> Spotify is directly mimicking Google and Facebook, and attempting to roll up
> power over digital audio markets the way Google and Facebook did over the
> internet.

There was always something about Spotify that made me very, very nervous.
Although I could never put my finger on it, it did mean that I have never felt
comfortable enough to use it.

This statement provided me with a moment of realization, though -- _this_ is
what made me nervous about Spotify. It's also why I will never begin to use
their service -- even if they manage to deprive me of the podcasts that I
currently value.

------
samdunham
For the most part, the podcasts I listen to are independent. I'm not all that
concerned about a megacorp coming in and destroying things. If Apple and
Google couldn't do it, I think we're okay for a while.

~~~
oefrha
> If Apple and Google couldn't do it

Apple sat on a de facto monopoly on the podcast player market for a vey long
time and simply left it alone. They absolutely could have ruined it. They just
didn’t.

I’m not sure about the Android ecosystem (it was pretty much irrelevant for
the podcast market until relatively recently anyway), but did Google even try?

~~~
squiggleblaz
Google barely even touches podcasts. I'm not sure if there's a "default
podcast app" on Android.

~~~
arkitaip
There is an app called Google Podcasts (com.google.android.apps.podcasts) but
I don't think it's an Android default.

------
zsolt-beringer
My main concern about publishing monopolies is that they are obsolete in terms
of quality control. Censorship has its right to prevent abuse and so on. But I
think for well established free thinkers who are far from any extremities (CGP
Grey comes to me as a great example) should thrive towards federated networks.
But I understand that advertising and mass media is getting more and more
complicated. #ChomskyWasRight ;)

------
jkhdigital
There's no right answer here. Platforms (aka utilities in the real world) are
wonderful sources of economic value but they are also natural monopolies. It
appears that the promised land of monopoly profits are what drives capital to
invest in building and improving platforms in the first place, so at what
point do you impose the heavy hand of regulation to avoid abuse of monopoly
power?

------
bogomipz
The author states:

>"With most users going through either Google properties or Facebook
properties, these corporations could then de-commodify the ad value of a
publisher ad slot."

Could someone say what is meant by "de-commodify the ad value of a publisher
ad slot." and how it is "decomodified"?

------
anonsivalley652
Welcome to clickbait headlines world: where telling truth is a revolutionary
act that might get you killed (in the most extreme cases that embarrass the
warmongers).

Anyhow, take two of the podcasters I happen to listen to:

\- Michael Moore's _Rumble_ \- MM's complete focus until things get better

\- Steve Lehto's _Lehto 's Law_ \- Lemon law, legal and other stories

both stream to Youtube also, which are subject to two or more completely
different corporate masters. It seems like a silly suggestion if there's no
technical, legal or economic barriers to publishing to N platforms to suggest
podcasters are locked-in. If someone were deplatformed from YT and Spotify,
there's Twitch, Floatplane and Vimeo and hundreds of others. A sensible
creator should have a website at a minimum to sell merch and link to social
media, and have backup content sites and backup means of monetization (in-
content, sponsored, and/or patreon/paypal direct). I think the big platforms
are making it more and more difficult for small creators to make money, but I
also think creators, large and small, need to diversify and protect themselves
from being dependent on or being locked-into exclusive deals with any one
corporate platform.

OTOH, paraphrasing Chris Hedges, public commons and public discourse have been
replaced with corporate platforms, public-private "partnerships" and mixed-use
shopping areas. Slowly-but-surely, a number of corporations are gobbling us up
and making us subject to their arbitrary whims (Youtube's opaque processes to
handle copyright and fair-use). He refers to it by the name "inverted
totalitarianism".. corporations subvert democracy with unlimited "speech" PAC
money, manufacture consent through PR messaging, Cambridge Analytica's and
troll factories to shift sentiment in desired ways, and possess immense
control over individuals to express themselves and make a living that's not
obvious until it's used, the effects of which are rarely obvious to other
people.

~~~
reagent_finder
Calling a well-researched and crafted, long thoughtpiece clickbait rattles my
nettles.

I feel a lot of people mentioning individual podcasts in this thread is
missing the point -- if the masses see Spotify as the place to find podcasts
in, that's where they'll find podcasts in. If ad money moves there, content
creators will move there, and draw a lot of people with them.

Of course podcasters aren't going to be locked-in, neither will advertisers or
listeners, but there will be a significant lure to just going on Spotify.

What's your first reaction when you want to find a video? You go on YouTube.
What's your first reaction when you want to find a solution to a silly problem
you're sure a solution exists? You go to Google. What's your first reaction
when you want to watch someone stream a computer game? You go to Twitch.

THAT is what Spotify wants here. They want to be the first or at least be in
contention to being the first whenever anyone wants to find something audio-
related. Music, new albums, and apparently now podcasts. They're already a
household name so when a normal person hears that there are good podcasts on
Spotify they'll just go "oh huh, that makes sense" and if they get interested
they might check one out.

I'd like to say I'll keep an eye out for this but honestly who has the energy?
A year from now someone will make a nice graphic showing how many podcasters
have transitioned to Spotify and how it's affected the field. I find the
clarion call to lawmakers both optimistic and naïve, blocking a merger because
Spotify MIGHT cause platform stagnation in 15 years is just never going to
happen.

------
blinotz
Podcasting is perfect for big companies to wall off into their content
gardens.

AmaCasts

YouGooCasts

SpotCasts

DisneyCasts

AppleCasts

Etc etc

All it will take is a tiny tiny tiny bit of money by the standards of these
companies to buy anything with an audience.

Exactly the same at TV, you’ll need to find your podcast of choice on the
channel that owns it.

------
jasonm89
I've been paying for Spotify for 5 years, but I now only use it strictly for
music. I find their UI for podcasts to be unintuitive and confusing, hoping
they can update it soon.

------
monadic2
It’s hard to see how this might happen without also rolling up Patreon.

------
nxpnsv
Spotify has plenty of healthy competition. Audible also tries. Both players
are poorly optimized for podcast consumption. They could learn lots from
overcast...

------
fouc
This seems like a parallel to blogs and rss feeds.

------
gsich
Short answer: yes.

But then again, a podcast needs a RSS feed. Not worth calling it a podcast
otherwise.

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LaundroMat
I suppose it would be illegal to offer an RSS feed of podcasts recorded off of
Spotify?

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swiley
Patreon already has an rss reader in its app doesn’t it? Why bother with
Spotify.

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trekrich
I listen to No Agenda! they won’t be going to Spotify!

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tdhz77
They are certainly trying to pivot.

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dwighttk
No RSS, not a podcast, so no...

They might make it so that some podcasts some people like shut down and move
to Spotify...

~~~
number6
RSS is the podcasting platform. Also You cant monetize the network. It was
tried before and it had not worked out. Key is value for value. And with the
ad scheme and analytics I bet the value for the listener goes down as they
become the product

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kebman
tl;dr Only if they gain a monopoly. Either way, I'll be looking for free
solutions. The main reason I don't use Spotify, and why Spotify can never
reach me, is Bandcamp and the fact that I really like my RSS feed.

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chooseaname
What will ruin podcasting is when 4 or 5 conglomerates own nearly all
podcasts.

~~~
ekianjo
How can a few companies own something that can be produced at near zero cost
and distributed at low cost as well?

~~~
chooseaname
Because at some point independents won't be able to compete for ad dollars,
etc. and will sign up with one of the few companies.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
I was around for the birth of the internet. There was a time when motivated
people produced things they were passionate about, and put them on the
internet without ANY consideration of "monetization," and it was glorious. Now
that everything gets gobbled up by FAANG, it's much more difficult to find
people who are still doing awesome things outside of those walled gardens.
And, given that hosting is SO commoditized, cheap, and easy these days, it's
doubly disappointing. I've never gotten into podcasts, but I REALLY hope this
attempt by Spotify to wall-up the art fails miserably.

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hazz99
I don't mind this. As a consumer, I really love having podcasts available on
spotify. I hated using another app, and its nice to be able to queue
music/podcast/music for some variety in the gym.

I was never a big podcast user beforehand, but I listen to a lot now. The main
reason I didn't listen to any beforehand was the friction in needing to
download another app (Which one!? There's so many!) and swap between it. It
was very difficult to build a habit when I could just listen to music.

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Simulacra
I think Spodify's entrance into the podcasting market is a good thing. Good
podcasts stay, bad ones don't. Spotify could bring longevity to great
podcasts, help grow small ones, but anyone else can start a podcast and run
with it if they'd prefer. It's like asking: Did cable ruin television? No, it
made it more diverse and expansive.

~~~
nuclearnice1
I don’t follow the analogy to cable. It seems that podcasting is already
diverse. Why will consolidation under Spotify increase diversity?

