Comment by kotaKat
7 hours ago
That's every move Spotify has done recently.
Podcasts, audiobooks, AI music, and now an entire fitness hub - they really don't want to pay actual artists anything for their music while jacking up prices for everyone else.
(Oh, and sitting back and crying "app fairness" for quite some time, but it's odd that they haven't been complaining about Apple in a hot minute in the DSA fight yet still won't ship long overdue support like AirPlay 2...)
You're right on what they're doing, but not the why:
1. They're getting the short end of the deal with music licensing (as are artists, btw)
2. They can't pay the artists more: the vast majority of the money goes to labels
3. The only way Spotify can grow profits if it moves to content that's not under the iron grip of the labels: podcasts, audiobooks, etc.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47783435
You're forgetting:
4. Once Spotify wrests power from the labels, they start the enshitification process themselves.
I gave up on Spotify when they did their push into podcasts and audiobooks. It became clear that they weren't really interested in serving their core customer base of people who just want to listen to music.