7 ms·

It's all competition for monopoly. No one "owned" podcasting, like itunes own streaming music and youtube own free-to-air TV. Spotify is trying to be the one th

It's all competition for monopoly. No one "owned" podcasting, like itunes own streaming music and youtube own free-to-air TV. Spotify is trying to be the one that owns it. They bought exclusivity to as many top podcasts as they could in order to start centralizing podcasting on their platform. Eventually enough momentum shifts, and all the other podcasters have to go where users go, spotify. They may or may not succeed. Either way, it's not just "buying premium content." It's an attempt to seed a monopoly. I doubt that what they spent is even theoretically justifiable as a self contained business proposition. The whole thing is quite sad. Podcasts are/were one the the free digital medias. No mediation. Standard protocol. The client is just a client. No one tells you what to say, or controls who listens to what. I wish FB and youtube were that. We the geeks have done a terrible job of defining and promoting digital freedom. Failed to find a way that doesn't sound like a paranoid eff rant. I don't think Joe really understood that RSS is a Free (as in freedom) media, perhaps the last. He probably thought about it as Youtube-vs-Spotify, with Apple and other RSS clients being more of the same.

jnosCo 5y ago
I think you're giving Rogan too much credit if you think he even for a second would care about Freedom while staring at a 9 figure check.
- david38 5y ago
  He absolutely does. That paycheck won’t stay that big of his popularity craters.
  - NortySpock 5y ago
    I got the impression it was a lump sum payout, or at least came with golden handcuffs that were purely in terms of "exclusivity and X-podcasts-per-week for X weeks", rather than subscriber count.
    - stevespang 5y ago
      If he got 9 figures lump sum check he could give a crap if his show flops . . .
- karmanyaahm 5y ago
  tbh, Rogan's not alone. Not many people would.
mikewave 5y ago
> Spotify is trying to be the one that owns it. If you're interested in pushing back on this, the Podcasting 2.0 community welcomes you. Check out https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/ for details. Podcast 2.0 apps have more metadata, chapters, cover art that can change like a slideshow during an episode, etc.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  I am. will do. Realizing that spotify was trying to "steal" podcasting in order to challenge youtube was a depressing thought to me. I always hoped that podcasting, as a free medium, would evolve to the point where it can usurp youtube... but not like this. Luckily, perhaps, I don't think they're succeeding. I was a semi-loyal listener of most of Spotify's now exclusive content. Besides a select JRE episode that peaks my interest, I don't follow any of them currently. It's not because Spotify's play is dirty. I'm just using different podcast apps, don't love spotify for podcasting and other such trivialities. As this article mentions, this is probably common. I guess a diverse selection of clients still counts for something.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  Podcast 2.0? These just sound like standard features of the MP3 spec and are hardly new... The open Podcast Index is great - that's the one place where the "open podcast industry" is most centralised, on Apple's podcast index
  - biofox 5y ago
    Got to make it sound groundbreaking to make people care. "It even has new and improved instant-pause audio control" /s
teawrecks 5y ago
> No one "owned" podcasting, like itunes own streaming music...Podcasts are/were one the the free digital medias. Ironic considering the origin of the term "podcast".
- dalbasal 5y ago
  Ironic-not-ironic maybe. Back then, Apple wanted content to exist. Podcasts were content. Also, 15 20 years ago, smart people (me being the smartest of all) genuinely believed that "information wanted to be free." The explosive success of WWW demonstrated that open platforms and protocols are far more powerful than companies. Trying to control a medium was a recipe for failure. That was before reality cracked her whip, and the borders separating one media from another became defined by the monopoly owning it.
josephg 5y ago
Yeah, I’m a paying spotify customer and I hate this. And I also hate that the spotify client seamlessly mixes podcasts with music in its recommendations. It’s like a PM somewhere at spotify was offered a cash bonus based on how many podcast listens happen, and they decided that making the app trick people into playing podcasts was a profitable idea. It breaks trust, and makes the spotify app feel adversarial. Like I have to be vigilant when I play music in case I get tricked. In a paid product I don’t want that at all and if it isn’t resolved, I’ll probably cancel my subscription over it and move to Apple Music or something.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  You have described it well. The force feeding of podcasts is unwanted. No one ever went to Spotify to listen to a podcast before, so forcing them at us from the UI is shit. I also don’t go there for recipes, movies or TV, they are a different thing and belong somewhere else.
- r3trohack3r 5y ago
  I’ve been using Deezer for over a year now and have never looked back. Amazing audio quality, DRM free files, decent API, good app, amazing catalogue. Used its API to build https://audile.app https://audile.app which has completely changed my relationship with music.
- lobocinza 5y ago
  I went back to the good ol' TPB. I can count on one hand the artists that I really enjoy listening nowadays and there are better ways to support then.
  - mackrevinack 5y ago
    ive come to the same conclusion lately; that i mostly listen to a handful of artists on repeat 80% of the time. i used to think that i couldnt afford to buy all the music i listen to, but looking at what i have paid spotify over the last 10 years i dont think that anymore. im slowly buying all my favourite stuff where i can and all probably cancel spotify soon and just put up with the annoying ads when i listen to discover weekly on a monday
dharmab 5y ago
Another free medium is email newsletters, which are seeing a resurgence. Yes, you need to manage CAN-SPAM compliance and the actual protocols are a mess, but you can cobble something together with on-prem campaign software and AWS SNS for not too much money.
- dalbasal 5y ago
  True fact. I'd call the medium "email" though.
  - dharmab 5y ago
    The infrastructure and compliance requirements of running a newsletter is very different from personal email (mostly to stay on the good side of antispam)
    - dalbasal 5y ago
      ...and back to platforms :)
      - dharmab 5y ago
        Often, yes, but with some care you can run everything yourself except actually sending the emails over the wire. And you can do so cost-efficiently.
pottertheotter 5y ago
iTunes (Apple Music) doesn’t own streaming music and never has. Spotify has the largest market share (32%) and Apple is second at half the size (16%).
thefourthchime 5y ago
Yep. They were suckers for putting their podcasts on "RSS Feeds". All media is becoming the Netflix model. Spotify saw that as the new goldrush and was first to act. Now they all are. It's not great for the customer... Yet. Maybe podcasting will continue to explode and we'll see a jump in quality, like we did with podcasts like Serial.
- tbihl 5y ago
  Podcasts follow a predictable trend, almost always. Someone really interesting and very well-informed has a lot of stuff to say that they've been stewing over for a decade or more. 100-200 episodes in, they've gotten it off their chest and you have to find someone else.
  - hallway_monitor 5y ago
    Agree; it's the same with most bands and one or two albums.

jnosCo 5y ago

I think you're giving Rogan too much credit if you think he even for a second would care about Freedom while staring at a 9 figure check.

david38 5y ago
He absolutely does. That paycheck won’t stay that big of his popularity craters.
- NortySpock 5y ago
  I got the impression it was a lump sum payout, or at least came with golden handcuffs that were purely in terms of "exclusivity and X-podcasts-per-week for X weeks", rather than subscriber count.
  - stevespang 5y ago
    If he got 9 figures lump sum check he could give a crap if his show flops . . .
karmanyaahm 5y ago
tbh, Rogan's not alone. Not many people would.

mikewave 5y ago

> Spotify is trying to be the one that owns it. If you're interested in pushing back on this, the Podcasting 2.0 community welcomes you. Check out https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/ for details. Podcast 2.0 apps have more metadata, chapters, cover art that can change like a slideshow during an episode, etc.

dalbasal 5y ago
I am. will do. Realizing that spotify was trying to "steal" podcasting in order to challenge youtube was a depressing thought to me. I always hoped that podcasting, as a free medium, would evolve to the point where it can usurp youtube... but not like this. Luckily, perhaps, I don't think they're succeeding. I was a semi-loyal listener of most of Spotify's now exclusive content. Besides a select JRE episode that peaks my interest, I don't follow any of them currently. It's not because Spotify's play is dirty. I'm just using different podcast apps, don't love spotify for podcasting and other such trivialities. As this article mentions, this is probably common. I guess a diverse selection of clients still counts for something.
madeofpalk 5y ago
Podcast 2.0? These just sound like standard features of the MP3 spec and are hardly new... The open Podcast Index is great - that's the one place where the "open podcast industry" is most centralised, on Apple's podcast index
- biofox 5y ago
  Got to make it sound groundbreaking to make people care. "It even has new and improved instant-pause audio control" /s

teawrecks 5y ago

> No one "owned" podcasting, like itunes own streaming music...Podcasts are/were one the the free digital medias. Ironic considering the origin of the term "podcast".

dalbasal 5y ago
Ironic-not-ironic maybe. Back then, Apple wanted content to exist. Podcasts were content. Also, 15 20 years ago, smart people (me being the smartest of all) genuinely believed that "information wanted to be free." The explosive success of WWW demonstrated that open platforms and protocols are far more powerful than companies. Trying to control a medium was a recipe for failure. That was before reality cracked her whip, and the borders separating one media from another became defined by the monopoly owning it.

josephg 5y ago

Yeah, I’m a paying spotify customer and I hate this. And I also hate that the spotify client seamlessly mixes podcasts with music in its recommendations. It’s like a PM somewhere at spotify was offered a cash bonus based on how many podcast listens happen, and they decided that making the app trick people into playing podcasts was a profitable idea. It breaks trust, and makes the spotify app feel adversarial. Like I have to be vigilant when I play music in case I get tricked. In a paid product I don’t want that at all and if it isn’t resolved, I’ll probably cancel my subscription over it and move to Apple Music or something.

lostlogin 5y ago
You have described it well. The force feeding of podcasts is unwanted. No one ever went to Spotify to listen to a podcast before, so forcing them at us from the UI is shit. I also don’t go there for recipes, movies or TV, they are a different thing and belong somewhere else.
r3trohack3r 5y ago
I’ve been using Deezer for over a year now and have never looked back. Amazing audio quality, DRM free files, decent API, good app, amazing catalogue. Used its API to build https://audile.app https://audile.app which has completely changed my relationship with music.
lobocinza 5y ago
I went back to the good ol' TPB. I can count on one hand the artists that I really enjoy listening nowadays and there are better ways to support then.
- mackrevinack 5y ago
  ive come to the same conclusion lately; that i mostly listen to a handful of artists on repeat 80% of the time. i used to think that i couldnt afford to buy all the music i listen to, but looking at what i have paid spotify over the last 10 years i dont think that anymore. im slowly buying all my favourite stuff where i can and all probably cancel spotify soon and just put up with the annoying ads when i listen to discover weekly on a monday

dharmab 5y ago

Another free medium is email newsletters, which are seeing a resurgence. Yes, you need to manage CAN-SPAM compliance and the actual protocols are a mess, but you can cobble something together with on-prem campaign software and AWS SNS for not too much money.

dalbasal 5y ago
True fact. I'd call the medium "email" though.
- dharmab 5y ago
  The infrastructure and compliance requirements of running a newsletter is very different from personal email (mostly to stay on the good side of antispam)
  - dalbasal 5y ago
    ...and back to platforms :)
    - dharmab 5y ago
      Often, yes, but with some care you can run everything yourself except actually sending the emails over the wire. And you can do so cost-efficiently.

pottertheotter 5y ago

iTunes (Apple Music) doesn’t own streaming music and never has. Spotify has the largest market share (32%) and Apple is second at half the size (16%).

thefourthchime 5y ago

Yep. They were suckers for putting their podcasts on "RSS Feeds". All media is becoming the Netflix model. Spotify saw that as the new goldrush and was first to act. Now they all are. It's not great for the customer... Yet. Maybe podcasting will continue to explode and we'll see a jump in quality, like we did with podcasts like Serial.

tbihl 5y ago
Podcasts follow a predictable trend, almost always. Someone really interesting and very well-informed has a lot of stuff to say that they've been stewing over for a decade or more. 100-200 episodes in, they've gotten it off their chest and you have to find someone else.
- hallway_monitor 5y ago
  Agree; it's the same with most bands and one or two albums.