They bought exclusivity to as many top podcasts as they could in order to start centralizing podcasting on their platform. Eventually enough momentum shifts, and all the other podcasters have to go where users go, spotify. They may or may not succeed. Either way, it's not just "buying premium content." It's an attempt to seed a monopoly. I doubt that what they spent is even theoretically justifiable as a self contained business proposition.
The whole thing is quite sad. Podcasts are/were one the the free digital medias. No mediation. Standard protocol. The client is just a client. No one tells you what to say, or controls who listens to what. I wish FB and youtube were that.
We the geeks have done a terrible job of defining and promoting digital freedom. Failed to find a way that doesn't sound like a paranoid eff rant. I don't think Joe really understood that RSS is a Free (as in freedom) media, perhaps the last. He probably thought about it as Youtube-vs-Spotify, with Apple and other RSS clients being more of the same.
It breaks trust, and makes the spotify app feel adversarial. Like I have to be vigilant when I play music in case I get tricked. In a paid product I don’t want that at all and if it isn’t resolved, I’ll probably cancel my subscription over it and move to Apple Music or something.
I’m a massive music fan and podcast listener.
Spotify had been my go to for music, but the combination of podcast and music has absolutely killed my experience.
I love both, but when I’m listening to music, I don’t want to listen to podcasts and vice versa. They serve different purposes for me, all audio is not the same.
I’ve recently switched to YouTube Music. I will occasionally use Spotify for podcasts.
Used its API to build https://audile.app which has completely changed my relationship with music.
Spotify is going to hell.
Hey Spotify: since I haven’t found a good alternative to your service, if I can’t stop your monopoly giving my money to Joe Rogan, can I at least have a ‘hide podcasts’ option?
If you're interested in pushing back on this, the Podcasting 2.0 community welcomes you. Check out https://podcastindex.org/ for details.
Podcast 2.0 apps have more metadata, chapters, cover art that can change like a slideshow during an episode, etc.
These just sound like standard features of the MP3 spec and are hardly new...
The open Podcast Index is great - that's the one place where the "open podcast industry" is most centralised, on Apple's podcast index
Realizing that spotify was trying to "steal" podcasting in order to challenge youtube was a depressing thought to me. I always hoped that podcasting, as a free medium, would evolve to the point where it can usurp youtube... but not like this.
Luckily, perhaps, I don't think they're succeeding. I was a semi-loyal listener of most of Spotify's now exclusive content. Besides a select JRE episode that peaks my interest, I don't follow any of them currently.
It's not because Spotify's play is dirty. I'm just using different podcast apps, don't love spotify for podcasting and other such trivialities. As this article mentions, this is probably common. I guess a diverse selection of clients still counts for something.
It's not great for the customer... Yet. Maybe podcasting will continue to explode and we'll see a jump in quality, like we did with podcasts like Serial.
Ironic considering the origin of the term "podcast".
Also, 15 20 years ago, smart people (me being the smartest of all) genuinely believed that "information wanted to be free." The explosive success of WWW demonstrated that open platforms and protocols are far more powerful than companies. Trying to control a medium was a recipe for failure.
That was before reality cracked her whip, and the borders separating one media from another became defined by the monopoly owning it.
Part of this might be the legal friction between Spotify and Apple in the past. Here's an article that describes a coalition that Epic Games, Spotify, and others formed just last year to counter Apple's platform cut. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/epic-spotify-and-oth...
Think how many people still subscribe and pay over ten dollars a month to listen to Howard Stern. I subscribe to a few podcasts on patreon at $5 just for the few bonus episodes. And I have trouble believing the ad revenue Spotify gets for this is anywhere close to what paying customers could be for them.
For example, there must be a lot of value in training people to use Spotify for podcasts at all, starting with the biggest podcast in the world. As more people use Spotify for podcasts, Spotify gets more and more power for future exclusivity negotiations.
Spotify was certainly just a music app for me until I had to start using it to listen to Joe Rogan, and it seems reasonable that the Joe Rogan move was to create this transition in Spotify users. They clearly don't just want to be a music app.
Then again, I haven't been able to understand his success.
I cringe when he calls himself a Comedian.
I cringe when he talks science. (Always felt someone should sit down with him and explain The Placebo Effect, and The Scientific Method, and what goes into a good Clinical study. I would be shocked if he ever even took Psy 101.)
Is it the upfront pot use that garners so many admirers?
He does know his MMA though.
I have enjoyed his interviews, but it's the guests I find interesting.
In saying that, I've stopped listening to him since he went onto Spotify. The only episode I've listened to in full since he switched was the recent Tarantino interview, which was great.
You haven't missed much. 9 out of 10 of his podcasts have him spouting the same one rant about covid responses. He does this no matter the guest or their field of interest.
It's that simple I think.
Eh, his relationship to MMA has been far more casual for years now, maybe in the aughts or early last decade, when he was more engaged by the sport this was true. His pod is still the highest honor media appearance for most MMA fighters though.
To each his own. He sells out comedy shows and has done so for years. People do enjoy his comedy.
He does know what the placebo effect is it appears:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE5k5UcEHj4
To me he seems reasonably informed for a autodidact-type person.
For Rogan, he could have tried to monetise his audience directly but probably couldn’t be arsed, or maybe thought people wouldn’t pay. Easier to take the $100m and keep focusing on content instead of commerce
Spotify is not powerful enough otherwise.
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't aka Microsoft with their Twitch challenger and ninja, but every circumstance is different.
0. https://mignano.medium.com/podcasting-rss-openness-and-choic...
Honestly I don't think Spotify bought podcasts to make money from it, they just want people to associate the word "podcast" with the app Spotify. And so far that works because no other app gained significant momentum.
The fact that less people watch the show is almost irrelevant
PocketCasts is FAR FAR better for Podcasts than the spotify app. The Spotify App has been getting worse for music as well, to the point where I am looking at other services.
Spotify is trying to be everything to everyone, and instead will end up being nothing to no one.
Their UX is awful too compared to a simple web app, they should just clone a basic Youtube/Odysee/Rumble functionality for their video side.
Edit: and yes the album is available on Spotify in full.
the ads aren't fake.. well, not all of them -- they're included ironically -- and many aspects of that album generated legal issues for the band.[0]
See also: about half of the rap tracks on the platform, where every third line is product placement.
Does Spotify not support FF == skip 10 seconds forward that every other podcast player does? I have genuinely no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me.
I quit Cable because of the ads. Great films chopped into mincemeat! Never going back. No RSS, no subscription. Requests for Patreon donations, no problemo.
The rest of the world seems to think otherwise….
Podcasts for the most part were in the ideal state for consumers, almost always free and mostly client independent distributed w/ RSS. I don't think there is much of any argument that Spotify can improve that state for consumers by taking a podcast exclusive. These deals are just payouts for the hosts not investments that make the shows better. Most even very successful podcasts likely have low opex (some exceptions like NYT Daily) and don't benefit from a big pile of cash.
On a different note regarding the Rogan Deal, Spotify took ages to add video streaming support on Apple TV (main way I would catch Rogan) which basically caused me to quit casual watching. They also only recently added offline playback for Apple Watch and even then it's premium exclusive and requires manual downloading of eps. I don't understand at all why an enormous company like Spotify is so neglectful of the entire apple ecosystem.