I agree with JRE leaving YouTube over the censorship but I disagree with him moving exclusively to spotify for following reasons:<p>1. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.<p>2. Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different. Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.<p>3. "Exclusive" deals in the podcast world is bad. Podcasts were supposed to be platform independent audio files. Making things exclusive is going backwards.<p>4. Spotify is not available in many countries.<p>5. Spotify's desktop player isn't the best imo. Their web player is only for audio so far, so they need to make major changes.
I don't listen to his show, but as a general podcast fan this is sad. This isn't the first podcast to move away from having a free and open feed of the show, but it is certainly the biggest and it opens the doors for a lot more exclusivity deals in the future.
Article really goes out of its way to let you know why you're supposed to hate Joe Rogan...<p>I think it's probably a good move for his bank account but will piss off a lot of his fans. I casually follow him on Youtube, just watching clips mostly but occasionally full interviews. I never use Spotify for spoken word or video---and I probably won't follow him there.
This quote caught my eye:<p>"At the time, the Human Rights Campaign said Sanders “must reconsider” the endorsement, stating that Rogan has “attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”"<p>If they attack somebody like Rogan in this way, it's no wonder that a lot of people are getting tired of political correctness and move the other direction.
If this was a podcast that I listened to, I would be mad. I want podcasts to be in my podcast app. I listen to them mostly on my phone and I don't have spotify on my phone. I don't want to install and open a separate program just for one show.<p>It also irritates me off when I see a podcast mentioned online and they only give an itunes link. I am an android user. Yes, most of the shows are in pocketcast's directory if I search for it but only putting an itunes link makes it more work for me and less likely to bother.
Ben Thompson & James Allworth had a nice discussion recently on the podcasting space and how Spotify is posed to close over this space.<p><a href="https://overcast.fm/+BihnTujyQ" rel="nofollow">https://overcast.fm/+BihnTujyQ</a><p>Disregarding over all the negatives of centralizing podcast discovery in one place, I would love to pay one fee and get 0 ads on all the episodes. Where the money is then distributed to the podcast hosts I listen to the most (like Spotify does already with music).<p>It's so bizzare to me how ads are still a thing. I never ever bought anything from an ad (my mind subconsciously ignores everything I hear in an ad & often paints the product in the ad in a negative light). And I lose quite a chunk of my time speeding over (the <i>same</i> ads) in the episodes I listen too.
Rogan’s claim to be doing this as message to Youtube is silly. He’s signing a contract to do a “podcast” with spotify where his “podcast” will not be a podcast at all. Podcasts are not platform specific. They’re open and distributed to any app which can read the RSS file.<p>This is nothing but an act on his part to appeal to the outrage brigade.<p>Re spotify, theyve been heavily ramping up their podcasts lately and doing exclusive/semi-exclusive content all over the place. If you care about the health of our podcast ecosystem, fight this any way you can–podcasts need to remain open. Our current trajectory is a straight line path to paying for podcasts which will have forced ads to go along with paying for them. That’s the road we’re on.
This is pretty strange coming from a dude who talks about how corporatism and monopolies are bad for us regular humans in every other episode. Either he's planning something or he just sold out. Either way, podcasting will stay as long we keep it alive. Rogan wants to move to a closed ecosystem, fine, that's one less podcast for me to subscribe to!<p>Edit: one thing we can do as consumers is to stop paying for a company that's trying to take over an open medium.
This makes me incredibly sad: not that we are losing Rogan's show, but that Adtech is finally absorbing the last type of media that was truly Free.
That's too bad, I hope at least the old episodes remain on YouTube.<p>Not only because it is simple and easy and free to find and listen to the episodes, but the associated visual content (clips, reactions) is good too.<p>Would Elon's blunt hit have been nearly as entertaining in purely audio form?
Too bad, I occasionally enjoy his show, depending on the guest.<p>I don’t use Spotify and I won’t bother with an account just for Joe. I hope he is getting good revenue from Spotify to make up for loss of listeners. I discovered him from Apple’s podcast app.
This is a place where the JRE technical ignorance (or disregard) screws the audience despite the recent episode with Adam Curry. The beauty of 'podcasts' is the open RSS publishing and subscription. The content creator controls their feed with ease. Forcing people to get the show through a corporate infrastructure is completely contradicting the feeling and (what I thought) the philosophy of the show is (was).<p>I discourage people from having apps like FB and other apps that pretend to be one thing and do a whole helluva lot more. The pirate ship that was JRE will now be another shill/cog in a bigger grinder. Will the market hold them to any particular standard? I say the thing that brought you over 8M subs should be enough. Grinding and squeezing all the pennies out of it seems unreasonable here.<p>Just an example of ONE problem being part of the lefty corporate structure is the question: How many 'questionable' or 'offensive' references will be self-censored going forward?
This might be a big thing. I think audio is kind of underused medium. We have podcasts, audio books and music, but there’s much more that could be done. Like radio theater, documentaries, talk shows. Professionally produced audio content can be really enjoyable experience.<p>Production costs for audio stuff are less than for video. Our busy lives have limits for video consumption, but I think there’s still room for more audio content. Audio you can consume while doing something else. Combine it with taking a walk and you feel good for yourself - compare that to spending a hour on sofa with Netflix.
Rogan said in his instagram post the podcast will stay free, I don’t think this will drive down listenership. With spotify hosting the content he will be able to have Jamie pull up lots more because of fair use, YouTube’s ContentId won’t pull the videos and steal the ad revenue. I think this is the biggest motivation for the move as he is often frustrated with that issues. Also continuing to put clips on YouTube will continue to grow the audience. I’d love to know how much the deal was worth, I bet somewhere around 150 million a year for 3-5 years.
If that means he's no longer going to be on YouTube, that's going to suck. That's been the only way I've been watching/listening the show for awhile now.<p>And it's going to be a lot more out-of-sight, out-of-mind for a lot of people if it's not up there with their normal YouTube video browsing. I'm sure they got a ton of money up front for that deal though.
This seems like short-term thinking from Joe.<p>I'm sure he got paid big time. But his audience will shrink massively and he'll become a niche personality.<p>It'll be similar to what happened to Howard Stern when he went to satellite radio; he quickly faded into relative obscurity.
This explanation does not really make sense:<p>> Bringing the JRE to Spotify will mean that the platform’s more than 286 million active users will have access to one of culture’s leading voices.<p>Spotify has podcasts, JRE is a podcast, so I assume those users already have access to JRE before this deal.<p>> By partnering with Spotify, Rogan and his team will enjoy the support of the world’s leading audio platform.<p>Vague. What can JRE do now they couldn't do before?
It says he has creative freedom but would they seriously let him bring Alex Jones back on the podcast under the Spotify banner?<p>Personally I think that's probably a good thing because I find mainstreaming conspiracy theorists completely awful but I really don't know what it'll do to his fanbase given that they were big on this whole independence and do what you want brand that he had going on
I am guessing Joe didn't learn anything from his recent guest Adam Curry.<p>Episode:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPKrZTUoUs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaPKrZTUoUs</a>
Note that the old clips WILL NOT remain on youtube at the end of the year. At least that's what he said in the Patton Oswald intro.<p>He's been a critic of yt's policies for a while. I hope that he comments on whether this is a purely monetary call or, in some part, due to those policies. Maybe he or Jamie-pedia read hn? :>
This reminds me of Howard Stern’s move to Sirius.<p>I would love if Spotify would allow podcast creators to set music breaks and play my music in between some of the more segmented podcast episodes.
Never understood why his podcast such a hit. I mean, I like the guy, and he's knowledgeable about MMA. But he's not someone I care to listen to on other topics.
One of my favourite podcasts recently went exclusively to Spotify. Despite paying for premium I've stopped listening.<p>The podcast experience is awful on Spotify, by far the worst fault is progress gets forgotten, which is completely unacceptable.
Is their player anywhere near as good as Overcast? Can you sync them on Apple Watch to listen to without the phone? I quit Spotify because you couldn’t do that with the music, so I’m guessing probably not?
The way I see it, some positives to come out of this:<p>-Will be fun again to hear "Jamie pull that up" and actually be able to see the content in question on video without any awkwardness.<p>-Competition for Youtube is needed. This is a massive channel moving ship, may lead others to follow.<p>-Having controversial guests/topics won't be such a big deal (Assuming Spotify is less beholden to advertisers than youtube because of its premium memberships - for now)<p>-A smaller audience is not a such a bad thing for Joe, esp if $ is still guaranteed in this exclusive deal. Slightly less eye balls on him, and in turn, less social responsibility, scrutiny and pressure from pseudo justice warriors.<p>Negatives:<p>-Exclusivity is in itself a form of censorship. Spotify is yet another company silo that relies on a proprietary ecosystem and pay-walling content.<p>-You may have to sit through 20 spotify ads in a 3hr podcast (if you don't have premium). Or worse, maybe spotify is not even available in your country.<p>-Sets a bad precedent, especially given that JRE was always at the forefront of promoting accessibility and openness. This is a move in the other direction, supporting a pay walled, ad-infested solution that is known to underpay artists. A platform that Joe himself was criticizing heavily just a year or two ago...
If it's not on the Apple Podcasts app I won't be listening to it any longer. Ah well, probably better to support smaller podcasters with my listening time.
Well that's unfortunate. I just got in to watching his full interviews.<p>Good thing Techcrunch reminded me just how evil he is. That way I avoid downloading Spotify.
Who started this "exclusive" nonsense? This article suggests Spotify made some moves before Apple started:<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696666/apple-podcast-exclusive-funding-bloomberg-spotify" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20696666/apple-podcast-ex...</a>
Regardless of what you think of Rogan ,this is horrible news for podcasts and independent internet culture in general.<p>Podcasts can easily be entirely free of platforms, networks, editorial control and reliance on advertising, and many of them still are.
I hope that at some point we can stop calling anything that doesn't have an rss/atom feed pointing to audio files a podcast, as they don't deserve that name.<p>I've already abandoned one podcast which moved to Spotify exclusive (The last podcast on the left) out of principle.<p>Re the view of Rogan, I find it fascinating that Joe is viewed as some kind of right wing chauvinistic demagogue because he has a few controversial guests, and states views in line with 99.9% of the worlds population.<p>Contrast with someone like Louis Theroux, who has repeatedly visited and palled around with all sorts of controversial people, including white supremacists, Joe Exotic & the Westboro baptist church, all while holding onto an entirely neutral reputation.
It's 2020 and I can't set the content language in Spotify to other language than my native.<p>It's literally impossible for me in Europe to discover any american podcast becasue I all the categories for podcasts are full of my native language only content.<p>Same with music playlists by spotify - they are mix between English and my Native language -> shite.
With RSS/Atom, the history so far is that any use case of open feeds that gets popular enough is eventually consumed by platforms, with the feeds discontinued.<p>Same with podcasts: the current open golden age always felt like was going to be temporary and so far Spotify looks like the most likely player to eat the mainstream.
Spotify always asks me to sign in or tells me that I can't listen to embedded media in a given country. I've never successfully played any media they've hosted.<p>Easier and simpler to download or stream elsewhere with no signup or red tape.<p>I suspect this is more about the money for Rogan. His content isn't essential for me. He often has contradictory takes as he seeks to placate his guests. That's fine for his particular interview format, but his inconsistency combined with censorship grandstanding and an exclusive contract strikes me as opportunist.<p>He's never been known as someone who speaks truth to power. If anything he's a conformist who wears his derision of conformism on his shirtsleeves. Feels like this is mostly to placate his audience.<p>Good on him, I hope he continues to earn money with his brand.
So I won't be able to watch the full episodes on YouTube any longer?<p>Where will the videos be hosted?<p>Answer to my own question: Spotify began testing video podcasting last year according to The Verge - <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotify-experience-exclusive-content-episodes-youtube" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263927/joe-rogan-spotif...</a><p>I guess now I'm wondering if all of his existing clips and episodes will disappear from YouTube? I would think not... but I don't ever recall finding any podcast on Spotify from a Google search result. Findability might take a hit.
I listen to the podcast because of the diverse and interesting guests that are on there sometimes.<p>It's interesting to watch how a guy that kinda rambles with some friends mostly, created a following, turned his side hustle into an income and now he's really cashing in.<p>Idk to what extent he worked hard to develop this business. But I suspect it's mostly him making people feels comfortable to table about what they know. If there is someone working on this I would guess the cohost - Jamie - is doing the heavy googling.
Free or not, Spotify is still not available in some countries.<p>I know that only a tiny minority of people is affected by this, but I still don't like that they chose geo-restricted service. :/
“attacked transgender people, gay men, women, people of color and countless marginalized groups at every opportunity.”<p>What a gross misrepresentation. Have the listened to any of his shows?
I sometimes listen to Joe Rogan using Rhythmbox audio player. Occasionally I'll check the corresponding YouTube clip to see what the guest looks like.<p>I've never used Spotify and see no need to sign up for anything. If I can't download/stream to open players I probably just won't listen anymore. There are plenty of other good podcasts and books and, although I enjoy Rogan, he does get a bit redundant after a bit so not that big of a loss.
Spotify has been running an exclusive high-profile podcast in Germany for multiple years now. It was previously running on radio and regular podcasts ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fest_%26_Flauschig" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fest_%26_Flauschig</a> )<p>It's surprising to me that popular, platform exclusive audio content isn't happening faster. All video platforms have it.
So he's ending his podcast and starting a radio show. I mostly watched the clips on YouTube and while I do subscribe to Spotify, I use PocketCasts for Podcasts. Guess I'll be using YouTube less which is fine, and <i>maybe</i> I'll tube in for the occasional really interesting guest.
"Spotify is currently not available in your country."<p>Take my euros goddarnit. Probably fights involving licensing agreements, or competition buying whole markets. I don't know if I should play at being an international spy and buy VPN just for Rogan or just pirate it out of the general principle.
This is a huge changing of the guard play. You have to give credit towards Spotify for this move, and what could signify a pivotal point in changing history.<p>The fact there is a paying subscription model behind Spotify, I can see a future where all podcasts move towards this platform.
I absolutely love Spotify, but for some reason I just can't get with it on podcasts. I'm not sure if it's the interface or maybe I just like to keep my music and podcasting separate? They're both audio yes -- but completely different somehow.
Sounds a little bit like when Howard Stern first signed a deal to move from terrestrial radio over to satellite radio.<p>If this brings in a lot more subscribers for top podcasts, then Spotify will do what SiriusXM did with radio hosts, or what Netflix did with comedy specials.
Sad, I don't have a spotify account I am for sure not gonna get one just to listen to JRE. I hate this kind of shit in the podcasting world.<p>Right now, the overwhelming majority of podcasts are open and if it were to change that would be a dark and sad day.
That’s too bad. I ditched Spotify because they won’t release a proper Apple Watch app with cellular streaming. I prefer to watch JRE so I guess this is just going to be the end of me being able to legitimately consume this content.
Half the fun of JRE is watching it! I hope this means that they will be introducing video, but I'm guessing not. If JRE disappears from video form, a part of the goodness of the universe will have died.
I always download JRE as an MP3 rather than use a podcast platform or streaming service (or Youtube). Is this going to change that or is the MP3 still available? Joe must be making a frickin mint!
Selling quackery wasn’t paying off his mansion mortgage fast enough? Now here’s a guy who sells out as fast as he possibly can. Fuck the message. Fuck the medium. Just get the guy some money.
Does anyone have any inkling of what he was offered? Gimlet got hundreds of millions for a barely breakeven business - what is the Howard Stern of Podcasting worth on an exclusive deal?
I’ve long wondered why Spotify hasn’t done this for music itself? Spotify is in a great position for vertical integration: own the artist, own the content, own the subscriber.
WSJ estimates this deal to be worth more than $100M.<p>I hope Joe Rogan has a plan for how to invest a good chunk of this for greater good. IMHO this kind of sum comes with a responsibility to do something with it that goes beyond your family and friends. (Like Tim Ferris does now for psychedelics research).<p>Judging by how I perceive him from the show, I don’t think he’s just greedy and wants that much for himself. Either there’s some detail in the contract that allows him to break free in case Spotify tries to censor too hard. Or he already has some longer-term thing in mind that he needs the capital for.<p>One nice detail is that they’d be free to play music.
Maybe a stupid question, but does this mean that the podcast will be audio-only from the 1st september or will the videos still be published somewhere?
I honestly don’t care. But Spotify podcasting is so shitty compares to overcast.<p>The fact that music is mixed up with podcasts makes search and discovery much much worse
Makes sense, the success of bringing the Joe Budden Podcast no exclusively last year opened the way for this.<p>Very interested to see how video will be on Spotify.
It doesn't take much listening to JRE or similar shows to realise that they're in constant fear of strikes and demonetization, even when talking about mundane topics. Joe's no Alex Jones or David Icke, and he's still afraid of getting more strikes on the channel. If this move means he can talk comfortably then good for him. It's not as if listeners lose any rights in the process.<p>Would this mean he could play artist's music that Spotify are allowed to stream? Or would other agreements be needed for this?
Unfortunate to see in the discussion that Americans are so disturbed by one Alex Jones that there seems to be an eagerness to empower quasi-government entities to a dystopian, Orwellian degree.<p>If I wanted to create more Alex Jones characters, this is one way to guarantee it.
Joe Rogan is surprisingly greedy. The man has been rich for decades, doesn't need money at all, and yet he's been selling crappy snakeoil products for years, and now he's selling out wholesale. He's taking a boatload of money to kill his show. Maybe he's just tired and this seems like a smart way to end it...<p>Sadly he just doesn't seem to be up to the challenge of seizing his role in history anyway. He could be someone that bridges the left/right political divide. He's the closest we have right now, but just not up to it.<p>There is a deep desire in the US for someone <i>almost</i> like Joe Rogan. Just like there is a deep desire for someone <i>almost</i> like Bernie Sanders. Or even someone <i>almost</i> like Donald Trump.<p>I consider these people the first wave of Great Internet Personalities. And just like the first pancake, they're not quite right.<p>We're living in a Bizzaro World for now. I'm eagerly looking forward to the second wave of Great Internet Personalities.
ok. well i certainly won't be use Spotify now to see this thick necked, horrible tattooed moron douchebag.<p>Spotify giving him 100M in the middle of a crisis seems particularly tone deaf.
There's plenty of content and creators exclusive to services and often stuck behind paywalls. I can't muster any outrage about one more person joining their ranks.
I hope and doubt this will change JRE much.<p>On the topic of libertarianism..<p>Almost all statists share some libertarian perspective on some issues. No libertarian has statist perspective on any issues. There are a lot of self proclaimed libertarians, Christians, Muslims, or people of any principle, who are incorrect. Unlike "Republican" and "Democratic" which don't mean anything, "libertarian" means something. You can claim you are "libertarian" just like you can claim you're a "martian", but it doesn't make it so.<p>Joe Rogan and Adam Carolla are not the only two who mistakenly call themselves "libertarian" at times. They just don't know what it means.<p>"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.<p>Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."
— L. Neil Smith
Doesn't JRE have guests on there with cemented right-wing opinions, and in general controversial figures from which he gains his popularity/notoriety? Is Spotify going to allow those guests or is JRE going to have to censor?
I agree with JRE leaving YouTube over the censorship but I disagree with him moving exclusively to spotify for following reasons:<p>1. Spotify was the one who conspired with Facebook, Apple and Google to ban Alex Jones and others. So if Joe is moving off of YouTube because he doesn't like the censorship, he's not getting anything better with Spotify.<p>2. Currently, Spotify doesn't have video (except album cover clips which occasionally show up). I prefer JRE's video format instead of audio. Think of Elon smoking weed on video vs on audio - very different. Seems like Spotify might be adding video later in the year but until that happens, we don't know what we will be getting.<p>3. "Exclusive" deals in the podcast world is bad. Podcasts were supposed to be platform independent audio files. Making things exclusive is going backwards.<p>4. Spotify is not available in many countries.<p>5. Spotify's desktop player isn't the best imo. Their web player is only for audio so far, so they need to make major changes.
Really, a typo in the very first sentence?<p>> Over the past couple of years, Spotify has demonstrating a long-term commitment to the podcasting format . . .<p>I feel like editorial quality has really gone to shit lately, especially at less mainstream outlets like TechCrunch (where I seem to spot at least one mistake in every article I read without trying). I wish I could say it didn't matter, but sloppy writing undermines your credibility, especially with so many voices competing for attention nowadays. Your [sic] doing it wrong.
The comments here are insane. Why do HN readers have this defeatest attitude about absolutely everything?<p>One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???
Given that Spotify engages in some of the same censorship and control that other bit tech platforms like Google/YouTube/Twitter practice, I don't see why I would trust them and invest in their platform as a fan of such content. See <a href="https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/spotifys-censorship-crisis-is-about-social-responsibility/" rel="nofollow">https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/spotifys-censorship-crisi...</a> for a past example where Spotify entered the fray of imposing their own worldviews by censoring content. Yes they ultimately backed off on that but I can't trust that they'll be the best steward for free thinking open minded content like Joe Rogan's.<p>EDIT: see the update at the bottom of the Tech Crunch article.<p>> Update: In response to a question the Rogan show’s history of controversial guests and subject matter, a spokesperson for the company simply responded, “All shows on Spotify are subject to our content policies.”<p>Given their content policies include a vague "hate content" policy (<a href="https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohibited-on-spotify" rel="nofollow">https://artists.spotify.com/faq/music#what-content-is-prohib...</a>), I don't see how Joe Rogan can openly discuss controversial topics like "Should transgender athletes compete in women's sports" any longer. Just one more reason to not trust Spotify or other big platform arbiters.