Yep; I'm a paying customer of spotify and I like some of the podcasts they have. But they don't have the gap removal + speed controls of Overcast (my fav podcast program on my phone). So I'm in this weird situation of never wanting to listen to any podcasts through the spotify app, which I'm paying for. And then when I want to listen to music (eg while coding) I have to wade through podcasts which are intentionally designed to blend in with music recommendations in spotify's apps.
I hate it. If any spotify PMs are listening:
- If spotify wants me to listen to podcasts, let me do it from my existing podcast app. I'm sure the developer of Overcast (and other apps) would happily add a spotify login button for a song if you ask nicely and offered to pay.
- Let users disable podcasts entirely in the spotify app.
- In the spotify app, give podcasts a consistent visual differentiator so I can easily visually separate them from music. Nobody wants to be tricked into listening to a podcast instead of music. Maybe make the "album cover" for podcasts a rectangle instead of a square. Or change the background color for all podcast related content to blue so I can find podcasts visually (or filter them out visually) while scrolling.
I don’t think Spotify wants you to be able to use your favorite app.
Their strategy is to take the open protocol of podcasts and pay the hosts to turn that into centralized tracks on Spotify to force you as the user to use Spotify to listen to it.
It’s about control intentionally - that’s the strategy.
When I used Spotify I had wished my podcasts were able to be there since it would be convenient to just have the tracks in the same UI.
What I wanted though was just the ability to add podcasts via the open protocol url for them (how every other podcast app works) or for them to allow hosts to upload tracks.
Spotify instead saw an aggregation play - they could pay hosts for exclusivity and take those podcasts away from their open distribution into a distribution entirely controlled by Spotify. This is a hostile move to end users (and ultimately most content creators too in the end).
Spotify has spent over half a billion dollars on acquisitions and investments into its podcasts division, there is zero chance they ever intentionally implement anything that might impede the returns on that spending.
They get ROI if people subscribe to spotify. Why would they care whether I listen to podcasts through their official app or through a 3rd party's app?
If spotify's podcasts are available in my preferred podcast app after I've logged in to my spotify account, they still get paid. And I'll listen to & appreciate way more of their podcasts that way. And they can use it as another funnel for potential customers.
If you care about Podcasts, don't listen to them on Spotify, ever. Spotify's plan is to build a walled garden around them.
Spotify promotes podcasts and buys exclusives so desperately, because their plan is to grow their audience to a too-big-to-fail size, so they start dictating their own terms. Every remaining use of RSS is a business opportunity.
