Contenu de l'épisode
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00 - THE SPOTIFY "SKIP AHEAD" BUTTON — THE BIG ONE
<b>What it is:</b> Spotify is testing a button that appears on the playback screen the moment it thinks you'd want to skip — an intro, a sponsorship message, or an <i>entire ad break</i>. It is bigger than everything else on screen. One tap drops you at the end of the break, back in the show. Premium subscribers only, selected markets including <b>US and UK</b>, and only when the app is in the foreground.
<b>Who broke it:</b> <b>James Cridland at Pod News, 4 August 2026</b> — an exclusive. Spotify never announced it. Semafor and most of the trade press picked it up afterwards; Cridland noted on air this week that some of them ran it <i>without credit</i>.
<b>The number that makes it different from a skip button:</b> Cridland's arithmetic — skipping a typical ad break by hand is <b>nine presses</b> of the 15-second button, plus a correction tap when you overshoot. Skip Ahead is <b>one</b>. "Some people have said, oh, but you've been able to skip for years and this is no different. But a button that only appears when it's stuff that Spotify thinks you should be skipping is a start."
<b>It skips other people's money:</b> the button fires on third-party ads — Acast, Odyssey, the New York Times — <i>and</i> on ads inside Spotify's own shows. It even skipped Search Engine's read for <b>its own paid tier</b>, PJ Vogt pitching Incognito Mode. One half of Spotify sells advertisers reach; the other half hands listeners a button to leave.
<b>Spotify's answer, and the trapdoor in it:</b> Spotify told Cridland it is "not affecting ad delivery." True only if delivery means <i>to the device</i>. Cridland: "If ad delivery is to the listener's ear, which is actually what people are paying for..." — <b>the download still counts, the ad still gets billed, the human never hears it.</b> Spotify's other defence: the button merely shows where other listeners already skip. Cridland: "I'm not entirely sold on that, but if that's what Spotify say, I mean they wouldn't lie."
<b>🔥 THE LINE FOR THE BOARDROOM — read the terms of service:</b> "What's to stop them from going, you know what, people are using that skip ahead button, why don't we just turn that on automatically? I went to have a look at the terms and conditions of Spotify. <b>There is nothing to stop them from doing that. Nothing at all.</b> And let's be clear, that would destroy the ad-supported ecosystem that podcasting is."
<b>Why the scale makes it existential:</b> Spotify is <b>72% of all podcast downloads in the Philippines</b>, <b>47% in Mexico</b>, about a third in Australia, 75%+ in some markets. <b>~300 million paying subscribers</b> plus 500 million free. Cridland on the smaller ad-strippers: "Podtastic will never be that big... they're not going to materially harm the podcast industry. <b>This is.</b>" And it sets the precedent — if Spotify does it, every other app can say the same.
<b>The YouTube comparison, and why it fails:</b> YouTube also lets you skip some sponsor reads — but <b>YouTube pays creators to be there.</b> Spotify pays nothing for an RSS show to be on Spotify. Same behaviour, opposite deal.
<b>Board question (Adam):</b> if the ad is baked into the file and the file is fully downloaded, who exactly is the injured party — and is that an argument for the download metric or the final proof it's worthless?
<b>Timing, for the cynics:</b> Spotify's Q2 report credited "favorable podcast impacts" with pushing its profit margin to an <b>all-time high</b> — in the same window it built a button to strip other people's ads.
Pod News — Spotify threatens industry with ad-skipping tool
Semafor — Spotify's new 'skip' button could end the podcast business as we know it
Forbes — Spotify tests ad-skip button that could upend podcast advertising
Gizmodo — very cool for listeners, not for podcast businesspeople
Digital Music News — Spotify appears to be testing a 'Skip Ahead' button
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<b>Make the Funding Tag Buttom Prevelant!</b>
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01 - THE DEAFENING SILENCE — WHO ACTUALLY PUT THEIR HEAD UP
<b>Cridland's charge, this week:</b> "I find it fascinating, although not altogether unsurprising, that <b>so many people who rely on podcast advertising for a living have sat on their hands and said bugger all on this.</b>" His read on why: nobody wants to go on the naughty step with Spotify or Apple and lose promotion.
<b>Acast — Greg Glenday, given only after a week's thought</b> (he declined to comment for the original story): "We do have some creators on the Acast platform who are not happy about this, and we will support them completely as they evaluate any recourse. Acast is working privately with Spotify to understand if we could have collaborated more on the rollout or positioning." Cridland's read: a hand-slap for not consulting partners, not a condemnation.
<b>Adopter Media — Glenn Rubinstein</b> calls it <b>"fundamentally wrong."</b> One of the very few naming it plainly.
<b>Ben Richardson</b> — interviewed on PNWR, sat squarely on the fence, neither for nor against.
<b>👀 Watch this space:</b> Cridland said on air this week he is <b>publishing another story next week</b> — "because I've discovered even more." There is a second shoe.
<b>Cridland on Spotify's character:</b> "I would hope that Spotify respects the creators. <b>All of the history of that company suggests that they don't.</b>" And on the replies he got: "the responses I've got from Spotify seem to show just a total misunderstanding of how the podcast industry works, which is more concerning to be honest."
<b>The endgame he sketches:</b> "The advertisers will notice when the ads don't work as well as they used to. And if the ads stop working, the advertisers will walk away. And we will have <b>no opportunity to bring them back</b> — they'll say, we've tried podcasting and it doesn't work for us anymore."
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