After taking years to add podcasts, Spotify is now toying with the idea of making you pay for them

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Podcasts have been one of the best additions to Spotify in quite some time, and it seems like the company is realizing the appeal of the service.

According to Andrew Wallenstein of Variety, some users have reported receiving a survey discussing podcasts and how much users would pay for a variety of features like early access, original content, and ads. Considering that Spotify has been investing big money into podcasts since its inception, it somewhat makes sense that the company would be looking on ways to monetize the content past Spotify Premium subscriptions.

That’s one thing from the survey that is most interesting – Spotify clearly states that users should take the survey understanding that it doesn’t include the price of the music streaming subscription. It is important to remember that this is just a survey and that the company may literally just be trying to figure out the value of its podcasts from a user’s perspective.

Looks like the premium podcast plan would be ad-free and some mix of exclusive extra content at price points somewhere between $3-$8. pic.twitter.com/ArK8xYg0CM

— Andrew Wallenstein (@awallenstein) November 6, 2020

A statement to The Verge seems to suggest as much. As a spokesperson notes, “At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of surveys in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of those end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as important learnings. We have no further news to share on future plans at this time.”

Regardless, it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Podcasts have been an awesome addition to the music streaming platform, but the thought of paying another subscription for them would definitely have me looking for other options.

What do you think? Would you pay a separate sub free for podcasts on Spotify? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

Editors’ Recommendations:

• You can finally stream Spotify right from your Apple Watch, no iPhone needed
• Spotify will now promote select tracks from artists for free, but that might not be a good thing
• Spotify now lets you look up songs by searching for the actual lyrics
• Twitch is cracking down on copyrighted music with a new batch of DMCA takedowns

Josiah Motley

Former KnowTechie editor.