While subscription-based podcasts aren’t a new thing per se, the tools from Spotify and Apple make setting up and maintaining a paid podcast a lot easier than it was before. Discovering and listening to paid podcasts will also become much more convenient. Additionally, it’s great that creators finally have other ways to monetize their work than just the traditional ad-based model. When comparing the new tools from both Spotify and Apple, I must say that Spotify has surprised positively, and at least on paper it looks like Spotify has produced the winning concept. Therefore, for my own part, I will definitely continue my podcast experimentations on the Anchor / Spotify platform.

There’s a lot going on in the podcasting ecosystem and it seems clear that more and more podcasts will become subscription based. It also means that there will probably be less ads in podcasts going forward and that’s also going to have an impact on AdTech development in the podcasting space. However, subscription based podcasts aren’t for every creator, and I don’t expect that the majority of podcasts will end up behind a paywall. Many podcasters will probably do what’s commonplace in the newsletter space, i.e. offer selected bits of your work for free to everyone, and then place the premium content behind a paywall.