I have heard this before from rando Reddit posts where it turns out they were listening to podcasts that just had the ads baked into the broadcast.
this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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They do serve ads on podcasts. Not all of them though. It used to be that they were separate, so that you were shown a different "now playing" screen. I first noticed when it happened on otherwise ad free shows, like Lateral. Not sure if that's the case now? Some of the podcasts I listen to jump in length from the episode list to the "now playing" screen, which is weird. Don't know if it's because injected ads or not though, or if they're even from Spotify. I haven't seen those ads that are on a new "now playing" screen in a while.
They still serve personalized ads in the podcasts. They aren't baked in.
Love hearing about products and services as I'm listening to my podcast about genocides and warcrimes. Mustard gas really gets me in the mood Blue Apron.
Mmm.... Mustard... 🤤
The minute I have ads in my paid subscription it's a cancel
Exactly why I canceled Amazon Prime. 100% would recommend canceling. I don’t miss it.
Likewise. I've been putting off setting up a Soulseek+Navidrome stack on my home server. I'm sure there's a way to integrate ListenBrainz suggestions too. First ad I hear, I'm doing it.
Soulseek for the win what is navidrome, i'm unfamiliar.
It's a self-hosted music streaming server. Basically a build-your-own-Spotify. Available as a Docker image.
It’s why I cancelled SiriusXM a while back. I’m paying for the service so atop playing ads. And at the time it was like the same ad over and over. God it was infuriating.
And then they wonder why everyone is fixing the hulls of their ships and getting new sails.
Edit: whats family plan these days? 20€/month? My local record shop has new albums for 20€. I'd guess you can find a lot of good stuff on sale for 10€. So might as well buy an album or two per month. In a year you'd already have 12-24 albums. You can make a decent playlist out of those. Do that for a few years and you have a excellent music collection that lasts decades. Spotify is stupid and pointless if you really think about it.
Or self hosting their own Jellyfin
It's the same thing.
A music collection on your harddive is a joy for you personally for ever
A music collection on a VPS hosting a Jellyfin with accounts for your family and friends is a joy forever for all your family and friends (as long as you pay the hosting fees)
I've been saying that for years. Now I have about 250 albums drm-free on Bandcamp. A good chunk of that money went to the people making the music, too.
I know there are people out there paying a subscription to Spotify who listen to the same dozen albums over and over, too.
I buy my music from the artists as directly as possible via Band Camp.
I would have to go and download an ad, and then upload it, and then select it from new additions in order to hear an ad on Plexamp.
But the subscription model is the framework for fuckery here.
It wasn’t long ago that subscribing to something, implied a consistent (usually periodical) delivery of actual goods or services that were in some way distinct from the previous periods good or services. Issue #33 is different from #32. March’s soup of the month is different than February’s.
And you could hold issue #33 in one hand and #32 in another hand and directly interact with two months worth of that subscription.
The tech bro idea of innovation is to get two revenue streams from each customer; keep us paying for the same thing over and over but never owning it, and sell our data to advertisers. The fact that they are also showing ads to subscribers is just dripping lemon juice in the paper cut because they can. They were already making money off that data.
If I didn't already cancel them, this would make me cancel them again.
Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer.
Just recently signed up for Qobuz. I'm planning on purchasing albums as I go along so at least I'm left with something the day I decide to quit.
Fun fact, there are tools to rip FLAC files of music you stream on qobuz so you can build up your music hoard
I would prefer they just make their apps good.
But it’s kind of bizarre that daily/weekly playlists are only in app.
And the radio function! They really should update their UI.
I respect that, I personally prefer to prepare for the inevitable rugpull that ever software as a service company does
Worst mobile app on the planet with SO many bugs, but dammit if they aren't a clean platform otherwise.
This is just the latest in a series of vibe-coding caused bugs, Spotify famously claimed their best devs were no longer writing any of their own code:
I don't know if this makes it better or worse.
Worse. It makes it worse.
It's telling of this era that it's impossible to initially know if this is corporate greed or vibe goonery.
So... intentional or unintentional enshittification, I guess. 😬
Spotify has ads? I've never paid, I thought it just had to take little breaks after some songs because they were harder to play 🤔
Ah no! The first company to play ads for paid subscribers
Haven't Amazon and Netflix been doing that for a long time already?
thatisthejoke.meme
Is that confirmed? My whole family use Spotify and we didn’t have such issue..
I can confirm. I have the family plan and got ads when I was listening earlier today. Contacted support. Got no where. Canceled my subscription.
~~I'm guessing it impacted some people for there to be a Hacker News (a fairly respectable news outlet) article about it.~~ I was just listening earlier today and didn't have any ads. Same with my wife on her account (family plan).
Edit: wow, I'm a dumbass. Nevermind.
But yeah, I still haven't had any ads after listening all evening while cooking dinner and what kt.
Hacker news is not a news outlet. It is a forum/aggregator
Heads up, Hacker News is a social media site like here or reddit, it's not a news outlet. It's run by Y Combinator, a huge venture capital firm in the SF Bay area, and the users tend to be tech bros or aspiring ones. Many attach their user accounts to their github and professional identity. I think there's only one admin and they tend to be heavy handed.
The commentariat at HN was anti-DEI before anyone knew what "DEI" even was.
Garry Tan, tech [Y Combinator] CEO & campaign donor, wishes death upon San Francisco politicians
Great callout!
I participate in the techtakes community on awful.systems, which is devoted to laughing at tech bro "takes". HN posts and comments are almost too easy as targets for derision and are common topics for meta-discussion of the reprehensible opinions.
I was just trying to have a light touch here. Start with the facts. We can talk about the literal cults spun off from it later.
The site's one of the clearest windows into the myriad and shockingly widespread ghoulish opinions that seem to fester in places that consider themselves important to the tech industry or attract people who think they are.
I really should start keeping a tally on shit like "how many times have I seen eugenics suggested on HN this month".
I participate in the techtakes community on awful.systems...
Jesus, that sounds awful.
Subscribed.
Weird, I use free Spotify and don't hear adds
(SpotX)