And now they're planning to take away something consumers have. I have little doubt that they'll succeed in turning what is currently an open ecosystem where users have choice into a closed system of fiefdoms like video streaming is increasingly becoming.
Spotify is a bad podcast app. In no particular order:
* There seems to be an inconsistent restriction in the number of episodes you can see. Daily podcasts suffer particularly from this.
* I need three gestures just to get to podcasts on their app, and then more to start digging into genres.
* Available podcasts seem to be curated - the selection is very small.
* There are no ratings
* There is no way to see what's trending, or it is non-obvious
* Downloading is locked behind a paywall, which is a big deal for a medium where individual episodes can be several hundred megabytes
* Subscribing is an afterthought. Three interactions to see what's new in a podcast I'm subscribed to.
In summation: terrible discoverability, slim selection, cumbersome ui, and basic features missing or locked behind a paywall.
I, for one, do not welcome our new overlords.