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It blows my mind that a company can have 500M active users and still somehow lose money.



Anytime Spotify makes money the music labels up their prices. Music streaming is not that great of a business model.


What about the podcast space?

They already invested hundreds of millions on Joe Rogan and can't even develop a half-decent podcast interface.

Maybe they could improve on that front and diversify a bit?


The thinking may have been that they cannot make money from music, but maybe podcasts could be profitable.


Exactly. That's why it's baffling to see them spend, what? 100-200? million dollars just on Joe Rogan, to then spend 0 dollars in podcast UI improvements.

I could imagine taking a Netflix-style approach perhaps, where you fund small-ish podcast producers and see what sticks. Perhaps develop a podcast-specific UI mode. Maybe create a monetization platform for podcasts (similar to Substack) so that you can attract talent and then extract the all-too-familiar XX% in platform fees?

I mean, I'm sure Spotify employees have thought of these things before, it's not like these ideas are revolutionary. But I see nothing that makes my Spotify subscription a must-have.


They will be met with resistance. Podcasts were always free, many even long time listeners will drop podcast instead of paying for it…

Also podcasts were offline by design, I know times change, but still it’s too early…


I too have been perplexed by how second-class podcasts are on there.


Sound spike music licensing is a great business model though!


Cartels and rackets usually make money yes.


Also, see "hollywood accounting".




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