native ads - kind of sums up the ludicrousness of the adtech industry… “they are not real ads because they are NATIVE!”

It's a mix. As a premium spotify customer, I still see spotify-injected (skippable) ads.

Never encountered these, what were you listening to?

Same here. Spotify claims it's the podcast producers' doing when ads are inserted this way. It still miffs me. One of the conditions of being a paid content provider for Spotify should be that you provide an ad-free experience for premium subscribers.

Here's the relevant press release: https://newsroom.spotify.com/2020-01-08/spotifys-head-of-glo...

Really? Not me.

I've seen opportunities to subscribe to podcasts for $$, which irritated me, but that's it.

This can't be right.

They are, and I think that Spotify should work to ban them. If I'm listening to a podcast on Spotify, then presumably the podcast creator is already getting my money (indirectly, via Spotify) and therefore I should get an ad-free version.

This gets to a question of what’s an ad. Take EDM DJs. Could they advertise an upcoming festival they’re playing at, even though the main purpose of the podcast is playing music?

> Could they *advertise* an upcoming festival

Yeah, that's an ad. It's even in the sentence.

Spotify allows it, I've contacted their support team about it. They claim that as long as the creator is the one inserting the ads that they allow it.