Calling a well-researched and crafted, long thoughtpiece clickbait rattles my nettles. I feel a lot of people mentioning individual podcasts in this thread is

Calling a well-researched and crafted, long thoughtpiece clickbait rattles my nettles. I feel a lot of people mentioning individual podcasts in this thread is missing the point -- if the masses see Spotify as the place to find podcasts in, that's where they'll find podcasts in. If ad money moves there, content creators will move there, and draw a lot of people with them. Of course podcasters aren't going to be locked-in, neither will advertisers or listeners, but there will be a significant lure to just going on Spotify. What's your first reaction when you want to find a video? You go on YouTube. What's your first reaction when you want to find a solution to a silly problem you're sure a solution exists? You go to Google. What's your first reaction when you want to watch someone stream a computer game? You go to Twitch. THAT is what Spotify wants here. They want to be the first or at least be in contention to being the first whenever anyone wants to find something audio-related. Music, new albums, and apparently now podcasts. They're already a household name so when a normal person hears that there are good podcasts on Spotify they'll just go "oh huh, that makes sense" and if they get interested they might check one out. I'd like to say I'll keep an eye out for this but honestly who has the energy? A year from now someone will make a nice graphic showing how many podcasters have transitioned to Spotify and how it's affected the field. I find the clarion call to lawmakers both optimistic and naïve, blocking a merger because Spotify MIGHT cause platform stagnation in 15 years is just never going to happen.