> There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) Correct, but: 1. Everyone wants to be the Netflix of podcasts.

> There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) 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