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Tell HN: Spotify now inserts Ads to premium users as well

54 points by methou ↗ HN
Was listening to podcast and got two ads that has buttons to download the advertised app(with gambling related disclaimer) as well as in-app pop ups.

I think it’s time to use my Apple Music included in family sub that I’m already paying for.

32 comments

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restlessdesign
Spotify has always included ads on podcasts because podcasts had already normalized that before Spotify took interest in them. As a result, they pivoted the value prop of Premium from “no ads” to “no ads on your _music_”.
drdaeman
I believe they dabbled in audiobooks recently... just wonder if those have ads as well?
relyks
The ones you pay for don't have ads
Skunkleton
Hasn’t Spotify always injected ads into podcasts regardless of premium? Are these new?
darkpatterns
Literally just cancelled mine today a couple of hours before reading this. It's great for music discovery but when already paying for YouTube premium which includes YouTube Music, which although has a much worse UX ultimately has the same content. Even if I wasn't getting music with the YouTube subscription when I added up the 50 odd tracks I regularly listen to on playlists and divided that by the cost of a yearly subscription, the economics make no sense.
tsimionescu
Personally, I find YT Music's UX much better than Spotify's. Especially when I'm listening to something and browsing for something to add as the next track.
scary-size
Totally fair. To many people discovery is the feature that the like most about Spotify. If that doesn’t interest you, you’re well off on YouTube.
yawnxyz
Podcasts have always had ads on Spotify (used to be baked into the mp3) but now they change tracks / insert the latest ad when they play — it's more intrusive as it's a noticeable skip, and you're not allowed to fast forward anymore (ugh I don't need to hear the same ad every single time)
crazygringo
> and you're not allowed to fast forward anymore

I always fast forward. It still works fine. (On the Spotify platform ads that are like a separate track, not just ads that are baked into the audio.)

Maybe that's a Premium thing?

slenk
Don't support podcasts on Spotify. They are trying to make free podcasts exclusive to them which I feel goes against the original ethos of podcasts.
crazygringo
Spotify Premium has always had ads in podcasts. This isn't new or news. It's because podcasts have always had ads in them, very often baked right into the audio. That's just how podcasts are.

Not really defending it, but with Spotify you're paying for the music. Podcasts are just there as an extra, unaffected by whether you're paying or not.

The good thing is that when they're actual Spotify platform ads instead of baked in, they're much easier to fast forward without accidentally skipping podcast content as well. So they're kind of an improvement.

Obscurity4340
Please don't support or frequent Spotify podcasts. Podcasts should not be walled-garden, they should monetize directly and publicly by having the ads at the start or end or sometimes I guess interspersed.

Truth be told, I'm starting to review my default "hatred" of ads. I hate ads for terrible Hard-R random shit. I can live with my podcasts advertising at least closer to being intelligent products but not personalised stuff. /Comment

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Obscurity4340
Because im complicated I will now argue the opposing position.

One thing I really DO like about it is it does corden off a certain population of listeners that I'm happy to have set aside—although there's guests that I would appreciate listening to so I don't have to leave it to the news to engage with purely on the level of ideas rather than boosting their following or "stats" independant of their performance or empirically-demonstrated views...

Edit: its hilarious how even today, the truly undesirebles will pay to self-segrate. Im alrightwith that, as long as evil has to work and pay to survive, there's hope for a free and liber(al|ty)-based society since rhe default is wanting something good thats also free ;)

I wonder if this has any currency as the genesis of the "private school" obsession

Obscurity4340
I regret and retract this. Please do your best to ignore and I will commit to more constructive responses on my side
raverbashing
If you go to google podcasts (also on the chopping block) and has adblock you only get the baked-in ads
CHB0403085482
Spotify should go the way of DuoLingo; once you pay there are no ads period.
waschl
Maybe it’s a location thing? Until very recently I used the free version of Spotify and never experienced any ads in podcasts (which surprised me considering the amount of ads when listening to music). Since I have premium I didn’t listen to podcasts a lot, so I can’t tell if it behaves differently
sakerbos
Even DJ seems to have ads in the form of "this viral track has been blowing up all over". The giveaway is the 30 sec description and the fact that it's usually not even my vibe.
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vsnf
I'd like to take this opportunity to lament Spotify's UX. It's my music streaming app of choice, but I'm hoping against hope that Tidal et all can eventually provide meaningful competition, because their UI, which was never exactly great to begin with, has done nothing but stagnate for 10 years. And in some cases it has been actively worsened, like when they removed Hold-To-Preview. I have a bunch of local mp3s on my computer of songs that never made their way to the streaming services for whatever reason from wayyyyyy back in the day and I use Foobar2000 to manage and play them. The experience is just night and day. I don't want Spotify to become Foobar, but it's criminal how much room there is to improve the music listening, library managing, and general app experience that Spotify just refuses to take.

tl;dr, I wish Spotify liked their app as much as I like their app.

piva00
It's always had ads on podcasts. Guess what, Apple Podcasts app also has ad insertions.

Where are you going next?

hedora
I don’t understand why people use Spotify for podcasts.

There are plenty of search indexes that return the rss/atom feed, and you can download the audio files direct from the publisher.

What does adding a middleman buy?

TheCapeGreek
The middleman already serves music, so it's convenient instead of "just setting up an rss reader". That's an extra app/site to keep checking instead of just opening the one you already use for audio-related entertainment.
benwad
Listening to podcasts on my computer, I want to go and do some cleaning, so I switch it over to playing on my phone seamlessly so I can walk around the house listening. Spotify is the only solution that I know of for this.
vinni2
> I think it’s time to use my Apple Music included in family sub that I’m already paying for.

First of all Apple music doesn’t have podcasts and Apple podcasts has ads too! This is clickbaity article.

slau
Apple Music definitely has podcasts. They are exclusive podcasts only available on Apple Music.

There’s The Zane Lowe Show, The Ebro Show, The Kelleigh Bannen Show, etc. There’s also After School Radio hosted by Mark Hoppus, and those kind of “artist-hosted” shows.

Technically they’re called “shows”, not “podcasts”, but they definitely seem like they’re following the format. These “shows” do not have ads.