It's no secret that Spotify is pushing hard to get as many monthly subscribers as possible. It's all about the MRR. Last week they announced the acquisition of Gimlet (producers of several great podcasts you should try) and Anchor. All in, Spotify plans to spend an estimated $500MM on acquisitions over the next year or so. But why? 

“We are building a platform that provides a meaningful opportunity for creators, excites and engages our users, and builds an even more robust business model for Spotify in an industry we believe will become significantly larger when you add Internet-level monetization to it.”

Daniel Ek – CEO, Spotify

There it is. Monetization. There are only a few ways to sell ads with music content, but podcasts provide many more ways to make a buck. And we haven't even talked about selling the data they'll gather. Oh, and while we're talking about podcasts... have you checked out Design Driven? Yes, it's on Spotify (and wherever you find your podcasts).