> What on earth happened? It was the hottest new thing in media, and then...everyone just collectively lost interest?
Spotify tried to acquire the biggest whales in the podcast market, thinking that it would be a revenue stream that wouldn't require paying massive royalties to record labels, which is why they've never made a profit on the music streaming side.
They overspent, buying up celebrity podcasts and creating some of their own, all financed with super-cheap capital that lasted until 2022 when interest rates rose globally. Interest in podcasts have also fallen since the stay-at-home peak, but Spotify added a layer of enshittification by splicing in ads into podcasts dynamically.
This is a massive UX fail because podcasts are supposed to be static audio files without additional monetization. But Spotify spent so much acquiring Rogan et al, they have no choice but to saturate podcasts with ads.
Spotify tried to acquire the biggest whales in the podcast market, thinking that it would be a revenue stream that wouldn't require paying massive royalties to record labels, which is why they've never made a profit on the music streaming side.
They overspent, buying up celebrity podcasts and creating some of their own, all financed with super-cheap capital that lasted until 2022 when interest rates rose globally. Interest in podcasts have also fallen since the stay-at-home peak, but Spotify added a layer of enshittification by splicing in ads into podcasts dynamically.
This is a massive UX fail because podcasts are supposed to be static audio files without additional monetization. But Spotify spent so much acquiring Rogan et al, they have no choice but to saturate podcasts with ads.