It's odd, though, that Rogan's podcast only started doing mid-episode ads after the move to Spotify. Prior to the move the only ads were at the beginning of the episode.

Maybe analytics indicated that people were skipping the first chunk of the show to avoid the ads. I know that is a common feature of other podcast players.

Maybe that's one of the benefits of having a podcast on Spotify. They can probably collect fine-grained analytics compared to an RSS-based client.

It is really weird actually. Not every episode comes with adds. Seems like Spotify is dark launching ab testing

I've never heard ads on Rogan's podcast in the past few years, this might be a US only thing

Even the podcasts that Spotify owns and produces have ads. So in that case they are putting ads in their own podcasts for their own paying customers.

It does seem like double-dipping. But I imagine they will continue to include more and more advertising until they reached the threshold where people unsubscribe.

This makes me wonder… would Spotify allow ads in music? Can I upload a music track that has an ad in the middle? Hmm…

I don't have Spotify, but check if The Who Sell Out is there since that has ads in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out

Pretty sure they used fake ads, but it’s a good precedent anyway.

Edit: and yes the album is available on Spotify in full.

> Pretty sure they used fake ads, but it’s a good precedent anyway.

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]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out

The whole album was supposed to be a play on a pirate radio station if memory serves, and a damn good one at that. Probably my favorite Who album honestly (besides Live at Leeds, of course).

Uhhhh I'd have to take Quadraphenia in any best Who album list...I think I've bought it at least 6 times in like 4 formats and I can still listen to it end-to-end without effort.

Yes.

See also: about half of the rap tracks on the platform, where every third line is product placement.