Joe Budden, one of Spotify’s biggest exclusive podcasters, is leaving the platform. He and his show will no longer be exclusive to Spotify after September 23rd, he says in his most recent episode while also seemingly suggesting it might not be available on Spotify at all.
“September 23rd, I cannot tell you where this podcast will be,” he says. “But as it stands, I can tell you where it will not be, and that is Spotify.”
He takes the announcement as an opportunity to scorch Spotify and detail his history with the company, which, in the years since he signed his deal, has become a sizable competitor in the podcast field. He claims his show exceeded Spotify’s audience reach expectations by 900 per cent to the point that his listeners crashed the platform.
Still, he says he never received a bonus, and the company wouldn’t allow him and his team to take vacation days on Christmas and New Year’s Eve, because that would have required them to miss two episodes. While the company wouldn’t pay them actual bonuses, it offered to give them Rolexes instead, only to say the watches they picked out were too expensive. Then, he suggested Spotify give money away to their fans for Christmas instead. The company declined.
“That was the first time it dawned on me that Spotify is pillaging,” he says. “You pillage the audience from the podcast, and you’ve continued to pillage each step of the way without any regard for [the fans.]”