[nvilcins]

Even though I had been a (long time, non-family subscription) premium user of Spotify, they started playing ads during podcasts (music was fine). How is that a "premium" service? Canceled the sub.

Tangent: Now that I occasionally play music on Spotify I get ads in the form "We know you were a premium user before, how is life with the free service now?". I find that somewhat creepy and disturbing.

[capableweb]

> Even though I had been a (long time, non-family subscription) premium user of Spotify, they started playing ads during podcasts (music was fine). How is that a "premium" service? Canceled the sub.

In the beginning of time (well, maybe not that far back), there was TV. Soon, TV had ads in them, but fear not, because you can pay extra each month and get access to premium channels that don't show ads, because you are paying extra. Soon after, they started showing ads as well. But then came the streaming services, promising Ad-free lands if you just subscribed to their service. And people did, but soon thereafter, found that the streaming services also added ads when you decided what you wanted to watch. Amazon Prime is a prime example of this.

[TheRealDunkirk]

Ted Turner started cable without ads, which is why you paid for it. That lasted about 5 minutes. I suspect the whole "no ads" thing was a bug bandied as a feature, because Turner couldn't GET advertisers on the new platform when it started.

[mvdwoord]

In the beginning of time (well, maybe not that far back), there was TV, TV had ads in them. Then there was bittorrent, and life was good.

[darkwater]

Where you have to navigate forums or websites pestered with ads, scam ads and plain malicious ads. Yeah, uBlock Origin I know but still...

[sekh60]

Radarr, Lidarr, Sonarr and LazyLibrarian got you covered. Get on a few private sites for torrents or usenet and never visit them again.

[darkwater]

But then you are almost centralizing again on a few, literally closed platform/communities where you also are at risk of data leakage if breached.

[capableweb]

Ignoring the fact that those two events were like 60 years apart :) But sometimes it takes a while before life gets good I guess.

[atraac]

> Even though I had been a (long time, non-family subscription) premium user of Spotify, they started playing ads during podcasts (music was fine). How is that a "premium" service? Canceled the sub.

This is interesting to me because besides ads that are hardcoded into the podcast by creators, I have never heard an ad in Spotify premium, not a single time for years I've been using it. Not sure if country of origin has something to do with it, but I'm from Poland.

[laputan_machine]

Yes, it will be the hardcoded ads in the podcast, but I think the point still remains.

Edit: Apparently Spotify also does dynamic ads too! Greedy...

At that point, why not just use another service instead of Spotify for podcasts? E.g. Pocket Casts. If you pay for the Spotify subscription I'd expect _all_ ads to be removed.

[atraac]

If an advert is hardcoded by the author into the file they upload, how do you suppose Spotify should remove that? They don't have rights to do that but even if they could, they would need to programmatically detect when the ad starts, ends and cut it out from the file? Soft Skills Engineering does this for example, they record their own audio for the ad and play it like it's a part of the podcast, I don't mind that as it helps authors, but that has nothing to do with Spotify.

I've heard about some dynamic adds Spotify supposedly adds, that are usually not related to the podcast itself, but I've never encountered a single one like that.

[nitrogen]

I've heard about some dynamic adds Spotify supposedly adds, that are usually not related to the podcast itself, but I've never encountered a single one like that.

You probably have heard them. Old episodes of a podcast with anachronistic ads for new products are one clue.

I stopped listening to podcasts on Spotify because of the ads remaining with premium.

[sleepymoose]

I've had spotify premium for years and almost solely listen to podcasts. The only ads I have ever heard are sponsored ads spots within the podcast itself (that you can fast forward through), never spotify ads. Is that what you're talking about? Because if so, it sounds like you need to be subscribing straight to your favorite podcasts if they offer a membership for an ad-free podcast feed. Expecting spotify to remove sponsor spots is kinda ridiculous.

[nitrogen]

The only ads I have ever heard are sponsored ads spots within the podcast itself (that you can fast forward through), never spotify ads. Is that what you're talking about?

They try hard to make it sound like a sponsor spot. If the voice changes, that's another clue, but sometimes the advertiser will pay the host to read a new ad.

First search result:

https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/spotify-podcast-dynami...

[cricalix]

The dynamic ad insertion comes from the service backing the URL for the podcast in the RSS feed. If all you receive is a stream of bits which decode to audio, how do you tell that it’s an ad that’s been spliced into the audio?

If Spotify are actually hosting the content themselves, it’s a different story, and I’d expect them to be able to not insert ads for premium users. If they’re just reading the feed and sending the request to origin, it’s a bit more difficult.

[jgimenez]

I wish Spotify removed podcasts, at least the public ones. They do not add anything: you can already listen to them for free with a different app devoted to that. I have been using Overcast since forever and I'm happy with it, but Spotify is trying to shove podcasts down my throat because that's what they do, even if I'm paying for their service. Is it that difficult to have an app for music and another one for podcasts? What's next? Will Spotify also have movies, books? I just want to listen to music. Spotify: if you're around, please have a switch to hide all podcasts.

[Grollicus]

Ads are a legal risk as the degree of separation required between content and advertisement is surely dependent on the jurisdiction.

For example some youtube influencers lost a court case in Germany because they didn't make that clear enough (or didn't try to at all).

So I'm very surprised Spotify didn't just forbid uploading ads to their platform.

[whatch]

Or platform can require that the creator labels paid promotion and penalise them if they don't. I hope Youtube will do that some day.

[Crosseye_Jack]

YouTube already does, you have to "Tell YouTube" (Its basically a checkbox when you upload a video - https://i.imgur.com/mPZAKTX.png) if your content has paid promotion in it. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/154235?hl=en

One of the reasons YT requires it is so they can replace an ad that conflicts with the contents paid promotion with something else (Another reason being FCC Regs).

[oauea]

All uploads should be checked by someone working at Spotify for compliance with their ToS, which should include not allowing ads.

[mimon]

There are millions of podcasts adding thousands of hours of content every day, how is this even remotely feasible? Why would Spotify want to do this anyway? If you don't like it when a podcast includes ads then don't listen to that podcast, this has nothing to do with Spotify.

[oauea]

Hire more people to skim through them? They could afford to spend 100m on an exclusivity contract.

[gruez]

>I'd expect _all_ ads to be removed

spotify can't do that unless they own the rights to the podcast, otherwise they might run afowl of copyright laws. I believe their intent is to have one place for podcasts (both their own premium ones and freely accessible public ones).

[citizenkeen]

That's ridiculous. I'd expect all ads added by Spotify to be gone. They can't control the underlying content. I pay for YouTube premium, but the ads the creators put in their videos are still there.

When I watch a streamer on Twitch, they'll advertise. Then, the streamer will upload the video to YouTube. Who is responsible for getting rid of the ad?

[laputan_machine]

How is it ridiculous? The selling point of paying for a subscription service like Spotify is to remove ads, the free service Spotify offer is otherwise almost identical.

I would expect the creator of the content to remove ads and the ToS to say "Do not upload content that contains advertisements".

I find it fascinating that you're OK to pay for a product and then watch ads on top.

[mimon]

If the ads are being added by the content creator and you don't like that, the solution is to not watch that content creator, not blame a random streaming platform for supplying unadulterated content.

[plorkyeran]

Spotify could require that content creators upload ad-free versions of their podcasts for premium users. This would probably require a significantly higher subscription fee to support much larger payments to the podcast creators.

[whatch]

> They can't control the underlying content.

This is the only place where I would like to see more control from platforms. And I believe they can. Youtube already requires to label video containing paid promotion. They can require to label exact time interval so that it can be auto-skipped (without sponsorblock).

Instead they release one shitty "feature" after another.

[oauea]

How would you feel if they published a remastered song with an ad right in the middle?

[rvnx]

There is also a similar issue with YouTube at two levels:

1) Sometimes the Premium mode of YouTube doesn't work, and you still get the ads (this looks like a cache bug or something like that where the Premium setting is not activated).

YouTube doesn't believe it's real, though I managed to screenshot it.

2) You pay for YouTube premium, but you still get in-video embedded ads that creators encode in the stream, like LinusTechTips. In a way this is not fair, as the promise to stop seeing ads is not kept.

YouTube could enforce their policy to force the content creators to mark their sponsored videos segment and automatically skip them if you have Premium.

[demindiro]

You can use SponsorBlock[1] to automatically skip sponsors.

As for the ads: you could install uBlock Origin and not have to deal with ads in any case.

[1] https://sponsor.ajay.app/

[gaius_baltar]

Just another reason to not use YouTube Premium. The whole thing just makes the problem worse by still allowing ads and requiring you to log in using an account that is also tied to your real world identity (for payment processing).

You just end up giving more data points to Google to track and don't get rid of all ads.

[nitrogen]

YouTube doesn't believe it's real, though I managed to screenshot it.

I seem to recall reading that advertisers can outbid premium in the ad auction, in which case you will still see ads. Can anyone confirm?

[Crosseye_Jack]

> Why not just use another service instead of Spotify for podcasts?.

User Convenience. You just have one app for your music and your podcasts. From a podcast creators point of view Spotify has a large userbase for your listeners to fid you on. Looking at the stats for a couple of podcats I help in the backend of, we tend to get more people listening on Spotify then we do on any of the other platforms.

> If you pay for the Spotify subscription I'd expect _all_ ads to be removed.

Spotify doesn't share the subscription with most podcasts (Obv exception being Joe Rogan, but thats an exclusivity deal, I'm not sure if it even went "Ad Free" after the Spotify deal as I've not listened to it in years). The vast majority of podcasts on Spotify are from podcast creators submitting their RSS feed to Spotify because it has a decent userbase. This is the same for Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Tunein/Stitcher/Etc.

If Spotify removed the ads from podcasts to serve ad free versions to their paying subs without the permission of the content creators that would most likely be copyright infringement.

If Spotify asked permission to remove such ads to avoid copyright issues, creators would want to be compensated for the drop in Ad Rev. Creators would have to report lower listener numbers to advertisers because paid Spotify listeners wouldn't get the ads being sold. If Spotify did this it would be easier for Spotify to just ask creators for an Ad-Free RSS feed for paying subs (which a lot of podcasters have to give to their own paying listeners).

Edit: Spotify does have a "Spotify Podcast Ads" system, but thats just for content that is "Spotify Original and Exclusive titles" and not (atleast yet) open to podcasters who also distribute their content on other platforms.

[procinct]

They aren’t the hard coded ones. These ones are dynamic ones. It only happens when listening to podcasts, never music. Fortunately you can skip them but it is annoying.

The reason you might not use pocket casts is because the podcast could be exclusive to Spotify for example.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/sp...

[netcan]

>> why not just use another service instead of Spotify for podcasts?

So... Spotify have been buying popular podcasts outrights and signing exclusivity deals. Those are only on spotify now.

[laputan_machine]

You misunderstand. My point is "I empathise and am not surprised that people choose to unsubscribe and go elsewhere if people are being given adverts in podcasts"

Assume the best, not the worst in peoples arguments, please. Cheers.

[netcan]

Maybe I don't understand still.

I wasn't disagreeing with your point. I was adding to it. I agree that if spotify annoy listeners with ads, they'll go elsewhere. Podcasts, unlike music, are (were?) a mostly free media... as in both beer and liberty.

Hence... Spotify has been pursuing exclusives ans a solution to the "why should people listen to our ads" problem.

[jessaustin]

I haven't listened to Rogan since his RSS feed died. I'm a fan, and I don't mind that he "got the bag", but I'm not going to take part in this attempt to kill podcasting.

[prmoustache]

Nowadays the content is an or embed product placement itself so even if you don't see/hear an ad you are exposed to advertising content when watching/reading/listening to anything.

[matheusmoreira]

Wish someone would create a machine learning thing that deletes brands from video footage. Just filter all that noise right out.

[danlugo92]

No, there's non-hardcoded ads in the premium tier of Spotify, I've gotten them.

[BatteryMountain]

Funny you mention this! I noticed about a month ago and will also not renew later this year because of this. I don't want podcasts on my MUSIC player to begin with, never mind them playing a single ad on a premium subscription. On principle it is wrong, so shame on them. I will not renew because of this, simple as that.

[nvilcins]

(Just to clarify a question raised in the child comments)

Those were Spotify ads promoting other podcasts, not sponsors promoted in the podcast itself.

[itronitron]

Reminds me of using Hulu's free service with commercials, then buying a Roku to get Hulu's 'premium service' which confusingly had fewer shows available. Returned the Roku and haven't used Hulu in years.

[cube00]

Even as a premium user with all notifications in the settings switched off, I still get popups for albums that I'm assuming artists have paid Spotify extra to push towards me.

[RandomRandy]

I have the same issue with podcasts. Spotify bakes in ads that are in my native language, not english like the podcast I am listening to.

[schmorptron]

They also serve you ads by promoting music that they get paid to promote - or where the artists agree to even less royalties in order to be promoted more. Which, for a service I paid for specifically for the great music discovery just destroyed the reason for using it. I'm on apple music now despite not owning a single apple device.

[matheusmoreira]

They will always add advertising to paid services. Not doing so is leaving money on the table. Eventually some executive is gonna realize that and do it. Actually paying for stuff just makes us even more valuable to them.

[notwhereyouare]

I would argue that they (spotify) already attempted it once before with drake. He was releasing a new album and they put his face on EVERY playlist, even if he wasn't involved. https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/03/spotify-users-push-back-at...

[bennyp101]

Interestingly, I paid for premium pretty much since it started until about a year ago but it seems that with a pihole and or Ad block, there are no adverts anyway … so yea I can still listen and no adverts