<story><title>Will Spotify Ruin Podcasting?</title><url>https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/will-spotify-ruin-podcasting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atoav</author><text>One of my favourite podcasts is moving to become &lt;i&gt;spotify exclusive&lt;/i&gt;. It is hard to put the betrayal I felt into words, when they first announced it.&lt;p&gt;I know it is a little silly and they probably do what is (in the short term) the best financial decision for them, but I already accepted that this is it and I won&amp;#x27;t listen to them anymore.&lt;p&gt;If you go &lt;i&gt;exclusive&lt;/i&gt; to any plattform you never do it &lt;i&gt;for&lt;/i&gt; your fans, but essentially &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; them. They might have a podcatcher they listen to you on they used for years, which they now should change because you want to limit the plattforms you are on.&lt;p&gt;The german podcast scene gladly seems to be quite resistant against these kind of things and they say they earn more through direct donations than spotify and&amp;#x2F;or audible is able to give them anyways.&lt;p&gt;Why would you voluntarily give up that freedom? And why is it so often US podcasters who do it first (they are also much more plastered with ads)?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zaidf</author><text>A typical independent podcast with small-medium viewership really struggles to monetize.&lt;p&gt;It’s great if things in the German podcast scene are different than rest of the world, enabling German podcasts to make more from donations than Spotify.&lt;p&gt;But if that’s not the case elsewhere, can you really blame the podcasters? Let’s say you decide to bake specialty cookies and give them away while relying on donations. Months in, you realize the donations aren’t really covering your expenses and effort. Then someone comes along and offers you a multiple of your donations for an exclusive, enabling you to make a decent wage.&lt;p&gt;I guess you &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; say “you’re doing it against your cookie-loving fans”. But I could just as easily argue “your original fans didn’t help you get fair comp, so you found another set of fans&amp;#x2F;arrangement to get fair comp”</text></comment>
<story><title>Will Spotify Ruin Podcasting?</title><url>https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/will-spotify-ruin-podcasting</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>atoav</author><text>One of my favourite podcasts is moving to become &lt;i&gt;spotify exclusive&lt;/i&gt;. It is hard to put the betrayal I felt into words, when they first announced it.&lt;p&gt;I know it is a little silly and they probably do what is (in the short term) the best financial decision for them, but I already accepted that this is it and I won&amp;#x27;t listen to them anymore.&lt;p&gt;If you go &lt;i&gt;exclusive&lt;/i&gt; to any plattform you never do it &lt;i&gt;for&lt;/i&gt; your fans, but essentially &lt;i&gt;against&lt;/i&gt; them. They might have a podcatcher they listen to you on they used for years, which they now should change because you want to limit the plattforms you are on.&lt;p&gt;The german podcast scene gladly seems to be quite resistant against these kind of things and they say they earn more through direct donations than spotify and&amp;#x2F;or audible is able to give them anyways.&lt;p&gt;Why would you voluntarily give up that freedom? And why is it so often US podcasters who do it first (they are also much more plastered with ads)?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cactus2093</author><text>The same thing happens when TV shows get sold or actors&amp;#x2F;hosts get contracts on other networks. I used to like the Colbert Report, but when he took over the late show I could never watch it because CBS wasn&amp;#x27;t on Hulu or any other streaming platforms. Recently I got Youtube TV, and I still can&amp;#x27;t watch anything on Comedy Central since Viacom won&amp;#x27;t put anything there or on Hulu.&lt;p&gt;The TV world is so fragmented these days, almost nobody will have access to every show on every network and streaming platform. Similarly in music even, not many people have Spotify and Apple Music and Tidal to have access to all the exclusive music. The openness of the podcast world is pretty great, but I won&amp;#x27;t be surprised if it goes the same way with more and more exclusives.&lt;p&gt;The flip side, though, is there&amp;#x27;s more really good TV content these days than ever before, it&amp;#x27;s just expensive (&amp;amp; annoying) to access it all.</text></comment>