By making more off of ads and subscriptions than they pay, the same way they are profiting off of music? That's how their business works, right? About a year

By making more off of ads and subscriptions than they pay, the same way they are profiting off of music? That's how their business works, right? About a year ago Spotify surpassed Apple for monthly regular podcast listeners. https://www.aakashg.com/2021/12/14/spotify-podcasts-apple/ https://www.aakashg.com/2021/12/14/spotify-podcasts-apple/ Some portion of spotify podcasts are "spotify exclusive" (that they pay the creators for, and that can only be listened to on spotify app) -- they bought Gimlet and several other podcast publishers. But I think they also distribute podcasts that are not exclusive? (not totally sure, I don't use spotify). I think the spotify-exclusive podcasts, along with their existing customer base used to using spotify app to listen to things, are probably crucial to their success in market share. They want to be the (or one of the) only way to reach listeners with a podcast, so they can take a cut. They're working on it. While right now I think even their exclusive podcasts can be listened to on free spotify accounts (they still make money off ads), if they can get to this dominant position they will of course have subscription-only podcasts too. More on the efforts of Spotify and others to get in a chokepoint position on podcasts: https://fair.org/home/the-new-podcast-oligopoly/ https://fair.org/home/the-new-podcast-oligopoly/