It may now be necessary to rely on other platforms to hear white noise and sleep peacefully. According BloombergSpotify might consider phasing out white noise podcasts, as it’s costing the platform profit.
The concept of these podcasts is to loop different kinds of relaxing sounds like waves or rain, and most of them are hosted on Anchor, a platform powered by Spotify. Recently, the platform realized that its algorithm is unintentionally highlighting this type of content. Result, Bloomberg reports, based on internal documents, that these streams represent 3 million hours of daily listening on Spotify. Last April, one of the sounds had even surpassed a billion views.
But Bloomberg he also explains that the company could increase its annual gross profit by 35 million euros, if Spotify made sure that its users listened less. To explain it, you have to look at the creators of these sounds. They earn up to $18,000 a month with ads placed by Spotify.
This is a deficit for the platform because it also appears that listeners of these podcasts are settling for ad-supported free listening and not switching to the paid version of Spotify.
Do you already have banned episodes?
A few months ago, the platform would have considered removing these podcasts from the recommendation thread, banning downloads, and directing users to other types of content. However, this project did not come to fruition. Although Spotify claims that podcasts are still available on its platform, creators are not.
One of them tells Bloomberg who has watched some of its banned episodes on the platform twice this year. For three weeks it missed episodes, causing it to lose around 50,000 views, then a second time for two weeks, causing it to lose 20,000 views.
For his part, a Spotify spokesman replied to the US media: “We test regularly and are in contact with creators on a case-by-case basis.”
If Spotify’s algorithms are changed, users with an iPhone could well turn to Apple’s proposals since a basic functionality present in these devices allows obtaining similar white noises.
Source: BFM TV
