They tricked a bunch of users over to their (awful) podcast playing experience, playing (free) podcasts is cheaper than paying for music for your subscribers. I

They tricked a bunch of users over to their (awful) podcast playing experience, playing (free) podcasts is cheaper than paying for music for your subscribers. I don't think they've made their money back on it yet but any user that plays a podcast is just free (or unspent) money for them.