Larry_O

Spotify’s first big step into that business is its acquisition of Findaway, which was announced last year. The audiobook platform is in many ways like Anchor. It allows authors to create, distribute, and monetize their work, and with the acquisition, Spotify will snag a key part of the audiobook ecosystem. It’s fitting, then, that the executive overseeing audiobooks at Spotify is Nir Zicherman, co-founder of Anchor.

….so, they’re just buying slo-motion indie fiction podcasts with chapter-breaks and no live-reads

Even if Spotify helps expand the audiobook market with its creator content and ad-supported listening, there are potential downsides for publishers and authors. "I think the hope is that you would increase the revenue enough so that everyone gets more," Cobb said. "But the concern is that you would get so much less per unit that it would ultimately depress revenues."

LOL, of course there’s potential downsides for publishers and authors. Spotify already doesn’t pay folks shit (unless you’re already famous and Ek wants to be friends with you). Their platform is trash for podcasts, it’s likely going to be trash for audiobooks, and all that’s happened here is that an app that makes sense for music, and got popular for music, is now going to be doubly awful for spoken-word content.

I still think it’s wild that basically every major advance in entertainment distribution involves high-speed internet as the delivery system, when

1) the American infrastructure sucks
2) The internet is corporate owned and unregulated

I get, fundamentally, the instinct to put everything on the communications network that we all primarily use for basically everything, I don’t get why we’re continuing to do this at the rate of speed we’re doing it when the only reliable way to access any of this is through a couple different completely unregulated regional monopolies in most use cases.

I’ll try address them one by one.

Oh, a fisking!

No thanks. But I appreciate the trip back to 1996 usenet.

Why is it immediately assumed the "glossy" one has the "dull" takes.

Most fan podcasts are just auditory comments sections. How many good takes you catch in those (mine not withstanding)?

The idea that any rando with a microphone is instantly more valuable to listen to because he’s doing it for free doesn’t make any sense considering the observable examples on the daily, on the hourly that just such a theory is refuted.

The idea that "only the fans" can critically assess the show that it’s tie-in marketing for doesn’t make any sense. Especially since, for most of those fans, they’re not going to be critical anyway – they’re pursuing their role as free-marketing in the hopes the main show will notice them and make them whole anyway.

A fan podcast is also promotion for the show (Fandom’s utility to studios is largely, a means to exploit people substituting "liking popular stuff" for a personality, by turning them into free marketing.) and for what it’s worth, most fan speculation and criticism has an inherently low value as either speculation OR criticism.

If the choice is between listening to poorly-produced live-reads of a subreddit (most fan podcasts of a show) vs. a decently-produced bonus-feature (most official podcasts) the latter is going to win out every time.