A few months ago, Spotify/Anchor finally extended their podcast subscription offering to include Australia in a move that followed Apple earlier in 2021. I wrote previously about TENs support of Apple Podcasts, and today I’m launching a similar setup with Spotify. It is however, different by necessity…and I very nearly didn’t offer this. Let me explain…
For many fans of The Engineered Network, support via Patreon, BitCoin/Lightning or Apple isn’t feasible or preferable. Many that already subscribe to Spotify Premium actively avoid Apple Music and Apple Podcasts, and after many months of requests I can now offer a Premium version of TENs most popular show, Causality, as Causality Premium via Spotify. In Spotify, search for “Causality Premium” under Podcasts or use this link.
Only Causality
Unfortunately Spotify’s offering is somewhat simplistic compared to Apple’s. It’s clearly aimed at single-casters, not multi-casters like TEN (i.e. Networks need not apply…yet…) and hence there is no equivalent of a “Network Subscription” or a “Channel Subscription” as you have with Patreon and Apple respectively.
Additionally there is no concept of a merged feed from outside their ecosystem, meaning the existing Spotify Causality feed is a native TEN feed, but it can not support adding exclusive/bonus content from inside Spotify (like Apple can), instead they want people to migrate their RSS feed over to Anchor, then add bonus content to that.
Ahem No thank you.
The only way I was prepared to do this was to keep the two feeds separate. Therefore the existing Causality public feed will remain unchanged, however a new Anchor/Spotify feed has now been created with an introduction/trailer publicly available and all other content available on a subscription.
At time of publishing, there are 44 ad-free, high quality episodes of Causality, plus 6 Causality Explored bonus episodes. In future, early releases (when available) will be released to Spotify Subscribers in step with Patreon Premium and Apple Podcasts subscriber early-releases.
Pricing
As previously mentioned the Spotify offering is quite simplistic and billing is no different. There is no option for annual discounts for subscribers and since it’s not possible to group multiple shows into a single subscription it was necessary to split out Causality in terms of several factors relative to other shows on TEN:
A final twist is that whilst Apple has set monthly levels for each part of the world, they and Patreon are US-centric with a base-level set in USD, which is why Patreon and Apple Podcasts are set in USD. In Spotify you can only set a subscription level in your local currency. With these details all factored in, Causality Premium on Spotify will launch at $4.99 AUD ($3.49 USD) per Month.
Currently there is no option in Spotify to modify your subscription setting, however it’s extremely likely this will come in time. The problem with AUD vs USD is obviously exchange rate and whilst in February, 2012 the Australia Dollar out-valued the US Dollar, that’s an ever-changing situation. The problem comes more with dramatic shifts in the rate over the long term and the induced discrepancy vs other support pathways. So in summary, there’s a limit to how equivalent Spotify permits this to be and whilst it might be near equivalent today, in the future - who really knows?
Preferences
There are some pros and cons though if you want to support TEN, between Patreon, Spotify, Apple and Lightning:
Patreon Benefits:
Apple Benefits:
Spotify Benefits:
In terms of which method delivers the most end value to TEN (least fees) then it’s:
Either way if you’re an existing Patron, Apple Podcasts or BitCoin/Lightning supporter then there’s no reason to shift to a different platform. Then again, if you’re a big fan of Causality and you’re a long-time Spotify eco-system user and you’ve been on the fence for a while, then perhaps this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!
As always, thank you everyone for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the additional flexibility in supporting and listening to Causality.