Audiobooks on Spotify

Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry.

I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription cost bump because Spotify has not decided they want to offer podcasts when I'm only paying for the music.

> I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry.

Vertical (acquiring as many steps in the supply chain to a business' core business as it can) and horizontal (acquiring as many related or semi-related functions as it can) integration has been the name of the game for as long as businesses were a thing.

One example I like to use is Temple-Inland, that started as a company that made boxes, was acquired into a company that made paper, bought another company that did forestry management, which turned into "we should have a real estate investment arm", and resulted in the country's third-largest mortgage lender in the early 80s.

We can be kinda tired of it all we want to but this is one of those competing interests between customers[0] and companies: the customer wants maximum flexibility for the lowest cost with the broadest range of features; the company wants the fewest costs for the most income with the highest amount of lock-in. Integration tilts the balance towards the companies so they will always pursue it.

0 - As an aside, I don't like calling people "consumers". We are customers; we "consume" service offerings, but (likely) we do so with intent.

Last time they complained about Apple not supporting Siri integration. Then when Apple added support for that, Spotify never added HomePod Siri support.

The idea has ~5k votes and 137 pages of comments on their forum and yet no action from Spotify.

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Implement-Na...

As a consumer, I’ve actually come to prefer in app purchases. I love when a subscription is available on IAP because for something like a newspaper, I know that I can cancel it with a couple of taps instead of having to fill out some long retention form or call someone.

Those podcast recommendations (i.e. advertisements) that appear as image tiles in their apps are annoying but avoidable.

Recently they have started inserting random podcast episodes into my "Release Radar" playlists. Not happy with this development to put it lightly.