William Gallagher
Spotify is reportedly planning to introduce a paid podcast subscription service, and not take a cut of revenue as Apple's new Podcast subscriptions will.
Following Apple's announcement of paid subscription podcasts, rival Spotify is said to be about to introduce a competing service as soon as next week. It's part of Spotify's continued expansion of non-music services.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify's offering will reportedly differ from Apple's by not charging a fee, nor taking a revenue cut.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with the plans, the Wall Street Journal says that Spotify will also allow podcast creators to set their own pricing. Reportedly, once the service is available, users of Spotify's iOS app will pay for a subscription via a website.
If correct, that means Apple will not take a cut of that revenue as it does with regular in-app purchases.
Spotify has not commented on the report. And Apple has not yet set a date beyond "next month," for the launch of its service.
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8 Comments
I watch a few channels on Youtube (e.g., science, space, chess) and if these channels included a paid service via Apple Podcasts where they didn't get my email address, I'd probably subscribe. Apple's new service seems to suggest that only Apple will get my email address. Looks like I will be spending more money, but getting rid of those annoying youtube ads every 3-5 minutes.
If I used Spotify, would Spotify be sending my email address to each podcast I subscribe to?
I don't know. That sounds very problematic to me. Apple announced it first, so nobody else should be allowed to enter the market. Better alert Sen. Klobuchar
Seems very unlikely that Spotify won't at least take a payment processing fee.
Then again, they have lost money pretty much throughout their existence, so why stop now?
Never fails.
Apple announces something and another company quickly craps out a product to compete.