Podcasting 2.0 August 14th 2026 Episode 267 - "Chocolove" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 p