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Don't listen to podcasts on Spotify. You'll be happier for it.
Spotify is terrible for artists and pays peanuts compared to other services like Tidal. I understand the app is great, but it is not worth it. Spotify is all in on AI music to save even more money. Terrible company.
I'm pretty happy not using Spotify. I will continue to do so. My library of drm free music (mostly from Bandcamp) is just fine.
Premium users
enabled them to skip ad breaks
Does not compute. Wtf is the point of paying for premium when you still get ads? Podcasts should automatically have the ads skipped if you’re paying for them.
Baked in adds in podcasts etc
Spotify doesn't put those in, the content creator does. And I suspect they won't be happy about this tool.
The content creator won't care but the sponsors might. YouTube has a similar system that skips over "commonly skipped segments" when you're fast forwarding. In practice it just means you skip past the section of the video where whoever it is reads the sponsors ad copy. It would have gotten skipped anyway, this feature just saves you a few seconds of putzing around trying to find the exact spot where the ad ends.
If the sponsor cares, the content creator soon will, because that sponsor spot is now worth a whole lot less.
I have discontinued many subscription based services due to all the price hiking and/or changing features I originally paid for.
Reading headlines like this always reassures me I've made the right choice. I used to pay for Amazon Prime (and the other sub channels that had content I enjoyed), Netflix, Spotify, Crave+Sportsnet. All of it replaced by YouTube Premium which I do get most of my money out of with its features including ad free music.
It's been a couple years since I closed all my premium subscriptions and every so often I'll get an email asking me to rejoin for 5.99 for 3 months and regular pricing thereafter (or similar price points), which only tells me the price hiking isn't at all vital, it's having your credit card information. It's simple greed.
Licking boot.
Wait - they pay . . . for “Premium” . . . and still have fucking ads?
lol
I have Spotify premium (the one single subscription habit I allow myself) and haven't heard an ad for years. But that is for music.
They are talking about when Spotify is used for podcasts and long form content, where creators often insert sponsored sections by themselves.
I mean they already have a 5 second skip button. I just hit it a few times and podcaster ad is over.
They're talking about the ads in podcasts put there by the podcasters. Not ads put there by Spotify.
Which are always less obnoxious, or obnoxious in the house style.
"obnoxious in the house style" is hilarious to me, but I know exactly what you're talking about.
I have premium family, but the only ads I hear are the ones that creaters put in themselves. I don't mind those as much.
Edit: what joe said
I skipped ahead by quitting it all together.
This feels like a move against the open RSS based podcasting system we fortunately have at the moment. Instead of getting money from sponsor deals, creators will have to join Spotify as their main platform to get revenue and continue podcasting. Then Spotify can further lock down their content and we get a closed ecosystem.
I use Pocket Cast. Just sayin...
So it’s Sponsorblock for Spotify?
Pretty much. YouTube has something similar for premium users in their app.
YouTube is doing the same thing.
I noticed my Android TV, with the built in YouTube app, auto skips the YouTuber’s sponsor segment.
It’s not SponsorBlock, just plain YouTube.
It’s about control.
Google/Spotify don’t get a cut from direct sponsorships. They can’t have that.
Nothing good survives capitalism. Profit motive grey goo.
lucky adblock skips their ads too
I think the larger point is they're squeezing the content creators, though.
Most YT/Spotify users don't use adblock, but this effectively kills creator revenue if they do this by default.
Eh, maybe. First for existing content it makes no difference, the creator already got paid to read the ad so whether you skip it or not doesn't change the money that's already in their account. The argument would be if people are regularly skipping the sponsored ads then companies might stop offering sponsorships. Considering this is currently limited to premium customers which a) tend to be the minority, b) still need to manually trigger a fast forward to skip the ad, and c) would likely fast forward through it anyway because they've already shown they're willing to pay money to avoid ads, I don't think this will actually make much difference. Worst case scenario it drives down the amount being offered for sponsorships a little.
Ad skipping sounds wonderfully pro consumer until you remember somebody has to pay for the podcast: If listeners skip every ad, block tracking and still expect endless free shows, the economics eventually stop working. You can’t demand independent media while systematically deleting the mechanism that funds it.
Short, non-intrusive ads sounds tolerable, until you remember these fuckers will enshittify everything they touch and make the experience forever degrading and worse to increase their profit. It is never enough.
Maybe just me but I'd rather the industry just evolve or die than be forced to listen to ads.
Another shit take from the resident LLM adbot.
You're already paying for premium. You shouldn't have to listen to ads.
Edit: in case anyone is wondering, yes, the account I am replying to is a bot that in a few months time will likely start promoting the stuff it's already promoing on its profile (which is a website that advertises via bots) or it will advertise a product that paid for this bot to do deceptive marketing.
"premium users"
It'll probably work like YouTube premium, a cut of that users sub will go to the artist
Anecdotally, creators seem to make more from premium viewers than ad supported ones
This is only the case if these changes actually cause a dip in sponsor revenue.
Personally, I like the ones that mimic old-school TV and radio, where the product/service placement is woven right into the show, and there’s a direct relationship between the presenter and the advertiser.
The entire ad brokerage ecosystem could vanish tomorrow and I’d be very happy.
That could be the preface to internet overall…
Congratulations on reproducing the technology brought to us by DVRs decades ago!
It was also built in to all stereo systems long before that. Not that LPs ever had ads, but I could dub to tape off the radio and then fast forward through the ads.
Spotify has too many users and control over the industry, nothing good can come from that. Do your part and stop using it.
so how do we get musicians put their songs off Spotify? 🥁
Pandora has always been my go to, but it's a different enough user experience that I didn't like Spotify when I tried it years ago.
It's fine when I do it, but introducing this as default in Spotify will reduce the value of ad-reads, and I'm guessing Spotify won't make up the difference to producers.
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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