Really? They might be able to legitimately compete with Youtube. I watch a lot of podcast clips on Youtube but would much rather view it ad-free on Spotify.
YouTube is effectively a Google Podcasts platform already.
Paying for YouTube Premium to avoid ads is some of the best money I spend each month. I wish I could do the same for Spotify podcast ads. I do pay for Spotify already to avoid ads in music, but I can't seem to avoid them for the Joe Rogan Experience.
Spotify doesn't add ads to music if you pay for it. I don't know about podcasts. If it was a viable business strategy for them to be paid-only, I think they would have done it, I'm pretty sure they make much more profit on paying customers than free ad-supported ones.
Weirdly enough, Spotify's goal is to scoop up all the money that's currently going directly to podcasters by making the advertising market more efficient.
They want to enjoy the type of monopoly that Facebook/Google/Amazon currently have online, except in the podcast space.
As I understand, Spotify podcasts still contain ads. It's not clear from the article that they intend to provide ad free podcasts for a monthly subscription either.
Wishful thinking, mostly. But Spotify seems like the most likely path to non-ad-based monetization of the “bottom 90%” of podcasts, despite the fact that Spotify isn’t currently going down that path.
Podcasters make abysmal returns today. If Spotify can pay them more than they make today while offering listeners an ad-free experience, that seems like a win-win-win.
They are, and I think that Spotify should work to ban them. If I'm listening to a podcast on Spotify, then presumably the podcast creator is already getting my money (indirectly, via Spotify) should I should get an ad-free version.
> Why not just use another service instead of Spotify for podcasts?.
User Convenience. You just have one app for your music and your podcasts. From a podcast creators point of view Spotify has a large userbase for your listeners to fid you on. Looking at the stats for a couple of podcats I help in the backend of, we tend to get more people listening on Spotify then we do on any of the other platforms.
> If you pay for the Spotify subscription I'd expect _all_ ads to be removed.
Spotify doesn't share the subscription with most podcasts (Obv exception being Joe Rogan, but thats an exclusivity deal, I'm not sure if it even went "Ad Free" after the Spotify deal as I've not listened to it in years). The vast majority of podcasts on Spotify are from podcast creators submitting their RSS feed to Spotify because it has a decent userbase. This is the same for Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Tunein/Stitcher/Etc.
If Spotify removed the ads from podcasts to serve ad free versions to their paying subs without the permission of the content creators that would most likely be copyright infringement.
If Spotify asked permission to remove such ads to avoid copyright issues, creators would want to be compensated for the drop in Ad Rev. Creators would have to report lower listener numbers to advertisers because paid Spotify listeners wouldn't get the ads being sold. If Spotify did this it would be easier for Spotify to just ask creators for an Ad-Free RSS feed for paying subs (which a lot of podcasters have to give to their own paying listeners).
Edit: Spotify does have a "Spotify Podcast Ads" system, but thats just for content that is "Spotify Original and Exclusive titles" and not (atleast yet) open to podcasters who also distribute their content on other platforms.
Another thing I hated about podcasts when I used spotify: they still have ads. I find it pretty much intolerable to get ads on a paid service. But podcasts weren't near the top of the list of reasons I cut ties with spotify anyway. (Oh wait, actually their endorsement of Joe Rogan was very close to the top.)
No, but they could lose subscribers due to Podcasts.
See, I pay for Spotify because of their playlists. Playlists have nothing to do with podcasts. I listen to my podcasts using a different app. Yet Spotify keeps throwing its podcasts in my face. Spotify is not good at podcasts. That's why I use a different app for that. I'm getting tired of scrolling past all the podcast spam in my Spotify UI, and yet Spotify provides NO option in Settings to turn OFF their podcast advertisements/recommendations. That is annoying to me, a paying customer. So they're pushing this, and annoying me, at their own peril.
Spotify is certainly monetizing their podcast platform. At least for the Spotify-produced shows, they’re injecting ads regardless of whether you pay for premium service or not.
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