Got an (audio) ad from Spotify despite premium

[GuyMontag53]

Plan

Premium

Country

Romania

Device

Desktop app

Operating System

Windows 10

I was listening to the Joe Rogan's podcast and got an (audio) ad mid-podcast for another podcast, called something like "Brandon &". It was not an embedded ad, it came from Spotify, it lasted 30 seconds. I am paying for premium - is Spotify now sneaking ads in even for premium users?

This has never happened before, and it happened after the revamped Spotify Desktop app got installed. I hope it's a fluke.

[zebu2000]

We pay premium so you can reward artists and podcasters, it doesn't matter. Why are they in a different category? You must stop this corporate greed.

[loveandjapan]

I found this thread after finally listening to a JRE episode for the first time on Spotify (#1718 - Dr. Sanjay Gupta), after years of being a premium subscriber, and hearing two ads in a row. I'm also a verified artist on Spotify, artist name is the same as my user name here. I feel the same way as others here: I've been paying for premium for 10 years and it's so I don't have to listen to ads. With music listening it's a complete deal-breaker, but when I'm listening to guests on a podcast talking about complex ideas an ad completely destroys the thought process and cuts into the logical flow of the argument. It's awful and it's unacceptable. I'm already less than thrilled about Spotify's business model with respect to artists like myself, paying virtually nothing for streams, but now as a paying listener I have to listen to ads? Ridiculous.

[SeanJohn]

Same! Except mine just dropped the episode and started a different one. Apparently it's been doing that to me for a while I just never noticed the skip

[splambob]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

Galaxy A6

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I was listening to 'The Offical Podcast' on Spotify mobile today and noticed some new and confusing behaviour - at the start of the podcast, it cut out to an advert made by the podcast hosts but the usual bottom-of-screen info-card (with the track name and album art) went missing. I was convinced that Spotify was having an issue, so I restarted it several times.

I came to realise that on some podcasts, adverts are now on separated and unskippable segments. I am generously keeping my mind open to this being a glitch, because otherwise it seems like a rather greedy and tone-deaf feature. I hope my optimism prevails.

If this is deliberate, it attempts to ensure that *paying* Spotify subscribers are forced to listen to these adverts. Let me assure you that people like me will instead engage with competing platforms where I am able to skip past the advertising. I am fundamentally opposed to advertising, regard it as commercial propaganda and avoid it wherever I can.

If Spotify wants to cater to their subscribers' interests and secure their loyalty - wonderful news! The Spotify database now contains podcast adverts split apart from the main content. Spotify could instead choose *not* to play those adverts for subscribers, rather than *force* them upon us. It should be easy to change - my opinion as a senior software engineer.

Spotify would simply need to choose. It may even choose a compromise, such as discarding adverts for *podcast subscribers* via Patreon integration.  What an incredible incentive to subscribe to the podcast! Quite different to *harming* its listernership statistics upon the Spotify platform. A good idea, no?

For now, I will move my podcast listenership away from Spotify (for each affected podcast). I hope Spotify is able to resolve this problem soon.