Correct, but:
1. Everyone wants to be the Netflix of podcasts. 2. It's premium advertising real estate. The ad formats you can chuck into a podcast have higher CPM.
Caveat re 2.: I'm not sure how much advertising contributes to Spotify revenue, so take this one with a grain of salt. It used to be the next hot thing in adtech when I worked in the industry before 2021.
Remember: why charge the user directly, when you can charge them indirectly using a bunch of random middlemen (DAAST, VAST, potato, potahtoh)!
> Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Example of a slightly less stupid* game: The Apple Podcasts app. The UX is mediocre, but the ability to pay for series/bundles is something I'd like to see more. Just let me pay for the content. As much as podcast content can be decoupled from the user agent, I'd like to see the same done with payments.
* or differently stupid
Not for long. I'm already starting to skip algorithmically inserted ads in podcasts because they're annoying claptrap like terrestrial radio ads. Adtech companies don't just come along and "use" ad space. They actively ruin its original value with their tactics.
I'm far more concerned with the terrible search function which puts all sorts of user created crap at the top that pretends to be what it's not, rather than album names.
By the way, based on your standards main stream news and most media content should be discouraged. The vast majority of it is “guys talking -- not experts in the [any] subject, but random guys who are pretty ignorant.”
But yes, as a user and subscriber, Spotify's business decisions matter to me. Because of their decision to host podcasts, which are low-content content and have nothing to do with music, I can't listen to artists who choose to dissociate themselves with that.
It's a loss for me, and the culprit is Spotify.
I have a problem with a service that I thought was all about music, hosting talk shows -- and talk shows that are US-centric, and controversial -- because as a consequence, said service becomes involved in a myriad of controversies and serves less music.
Of course I don't control what Spotify does; I will simply need to take my business elsewhere. It's not the end of the world; but it's annoying.
Now the home page is a bunch of podcasts they're trying to get me to listen to. Even though I've never listened to a single podcast through them.
It's really annoying that recommendations, which are the primary reason I use Spotify, have gotten worse, and the UI has gotten worse, and I now have to scroll past podcasts just to get to music. I cancelled my account because of it.
But why would nobody do that? How hard is it? Maybe it's too much trouble for something you don't care about, but for a content you enjoy, doing one copy-paste isn't very difficult?
Personally I resent Spotify for the whole move to podcasts.
There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...)
Instead they choose to publish recordings of guys talking -- not experts in any subject, but random guys who are pretty ignorant of everything, and who, because they don't know anything, tend to have a very political conversation. This isn't art. This is just another way of wasting time.
As a result, Spotify is now in the business of policing content. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.