Patreon is taking over Spotify

As Spotify pivots its podcast strategy to favor creator-led content and move away from total platform exclusivity, the audio giant is collaborating with Patreon to bring subscriber podcasts directly onto the streaming service.

Beginning Wednesday, Patreon users can stream their subscriber-exclusive shows on Spotify. In turn, listeners can sync up their Patreon accounts to their Spotify accounts, providing a streamlined app to listen to all of their podcast (and music) content. 

For Patreon, linking up with Spotify could help foster some goodwill among creators to keep them on the platform after recent missteps, including two separate payment issues that were causing some creators to lose access to their funds and some fans to have their Patreon payments getting flagged as fraudulent. (The company said both issues had been resolved as of last week.) 

It also could help Spotify circumvent paying creators via licensing deals to upload their shows onto the platform while simultaneously garnering more good will with creators—especially at a time when indie music artists may struggle to make a living from streaming alone on platforms like Spotify.

And as Spotify pursues more of a YouTube model with its podcasts, bringing in video and Q&A functionality to popular shows like “Call Her Daddy” and Chamberlain’s “Anything Goes,” the Patreon deal could be an opportunity for Spotify to test the waters for interest in subscription content from creators as it explores different monetization options for its podcasts outside of just advertising.

If it’s a success, Spotify could very well be eating Patreon’s lunch. ...

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