TechScape: how Spotify may have just quietly changed podcasts forever

Which is why Spotify is willing to torch its relationships with some of the biggest names in music over Joe Rogan.

And bizarrely, the company is building towards that goal almost unopposed. Apple, whose built-in Podcasts app is still the market leader, has all but abandoned the medium it effectively created. Its desultory launch of paid-for podcasts in late 2021 was notable more for temporarily breaking its own podcast store than it is for the small number of shows that have taken it up on the offer. Amazon is building an impressive roster of audio exclusives at Audible, but its end goal is more clearly a Netflix-style model. And the roster of indie apps and networks that make up the long-tail of the podcasting industry lack the resources and coordination to put up much of a fight.

From one industry on the cusp of platform assimilation to another in its final throes. This week, Amazon completed its eight-year-long integration of digital comics platform Comixology, which it acquired in the heady days of 2014.

By the time the acquisition was finalised, Comixology had already cemented its position as the market leader. A white-label app for Marvel Comics, launched alongside the iPad by Steve Jobs himself, had helped catapult it into the mainstream, and just three years later it boasted a selection that included all the major American publishers, and a wide and growing selection of European and Japanese comics as well.

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