Any fixed cost business will inherently have large sunk costs and will not experience net profits until you've worked your way down the cost curve. Content businesses have marginal costs that approach zero as a function of time -- of course without any operating cost of delivery. There's no need for "early industry rumors" to understand the fixed cost business of streaming.

"The Office" was paid for in full, distributed in a first-party network, then syndicated, then digitally licensed, and now back to its first-party network. The total revenue value of that decade long investment is not the same as a variable cost businesses like ecommerce, delivery services, or Moviepass.

I mean, the point still kinda stands. Spotify can throw money at podcasting until the cows go home, but if they aren't buying something for their money it's just going to waste. Podcasts on Spotify aren't all that good, and every podcast I (and everyone I know) actually listen to is accessible elsewhere.