from the protocols-over-proprietary-platforms dept
We wrote a number of instances concerning the issues of Spotify’s try and colonize the podcast market. Whereas it was, maybe, an comprehensible transfer driven by the economics of our completely damaged copyright methods which made it unattainable to be really worthwhile with simply music, Spotify’s resolution to go after the podcast market, shelling out large {dollars} for podcast-focused corporations like Gimlet Media and the Ringer, was all about taking a system based mostly on open protocols — primarily mp3s and RSS — and attempting to lock it up behind a proprietary moat.
We frightened about this again when Spotify purchased Gimlet, fearing that it was a warning signal of an try and wall off the open podcast market. It’s why we stored noting that each time Spotify paid some well-known podcaster to solely launch their audio by Spotify that we should always stop calling them podcasts, since they have been now proprietary audio. And, we highlighted that the open web stood to lose a lot if we allowed this sort of colonization of the open protocol podcasts into locked silos of proprietary audio.
In fact, there’s a fairly lengthy historical past of corporations attempting to do that, and typically succeeding, however (fortunately) it feels like Spotify’s big bet has been an even bigger bust.
“In hindsight, I most likely bought a bit carried away and overinvested relative to the uncertainty we noticed shaping up out there,” Ek said on an earnings call in January. “So we’re shifting to concentrate on tightening our spend and turning into extra environment friendly.”
Spotify was a one-company podcast bubble. Its drastic cuts have triggered a podcast winter, because the small studios it helped assist consolidate and lavish narrative productions wane. However rivals from tech giants Amazon and Apple to the radio firm iHeart have discovered higher returns on extra cautious bets. Spotify’s pivot has extra in frequent with the current cuts to Hollywood’s spending on streaming tv.
Notably, the bets by these different corporations have (largely) been on retaining extra open podcasts, although a few of them (Amazon for one) supply early entry to podcasts for Prime subscribers.
Spotify has nonetheless constructed up an enormous viewers that now listens to podcasts (together with precise podcasts alongside Spotify’s proprietary audio programing), but it surely’s more and more trying like its plan to maneuver open podcasts right into a silo which you could solely get by Spotify and in a proprietary format are fizzling.
There’s a motive that I preserve pushing for protocol-based solutions over proprietary platforms. These open methods stop lock-in, they stop silos, and (maybe most notably) they preserve the ecosystem extra open and free for everybody, so {that a} single firm can’t are available and twist the system solely to their very own benefits.
Filed Below: podcasts, proprietary audio, protocols, silos
Corporations: gimlet media, spotify
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