Four months after ending his exclusive deal with Spotify, Joe Budden is bringing his podcast to Patreon and has been named a consultant to the company, taking on the title of head of creative heritage. Like many other podcasters on Patreon, your program will be available for free on most podcasting platforms – with the notable exception of Spotify – and paying supporters will have access to additional benefits. Both your show, Joe Budden Podcast, and his network, The Joe Budden Network, will be supported through the same page as Patreon at the same subscription cost.
Subscribers can pay between $ 5 and $ 25 a month for bonus content, a private Discord and exclusive tour offers. Budden account The Verge he and his team will also do new shows as exclusive to Patreon subscribers, with them possibly being released more widely after a certain period of time.
The message of this change is clear: although many podcasters are committing to exclusive deals, Budden does not see them as the future of podcasting.
“This is so prehistoric,” he says, explaining that when he signed his contract with Spotify three years ago, he and Spotify wanted to see if exclusive deals could work. He says he proved the model, along with the potential of his audience, but he didn’t want Spotify to use its fans and reach to prove the value of the platform itself and make money.
“For many years, the record companies and the system I come from have tricked us into thinking they were doing us a favor by capitalizing on our talent and basically lending us money, and that has been the standard all along,” says Budden, adding that he already knows how this system worked for the creators.
When Budden announced his separation from the technology company, he said that Spotify was “pillaging” its audience and was only concerned with how its program contributed to Spotify in general, not about its actual podcast.
Jack Conte, Patreon’s CEO, says that Budden is on a standard Patreon plan, in which the company receives a portion of its subscription revenue, but having him as a consultant sets him apart from other creators and emphasizes the company’s interest in hear it directly.
“These are technology companies paying creators the minimum amount they can pay instead of paying creators what they are really worth,” says Conte. “Creators are sending gold to these platforms – billions of hours of energy, enthusiasm, passion, creativity, storytelling and excitement – all the things we love to read, hear, watch, see and hear, and creators receive fractions of that are really worth. Not only that, they are disconnected from their audiences. They don’t have a relationship with their audience. They don’t get data. They are unable to run their own businesses. They are excluded from their business. “
Budden is not the only one talking about how Spotify treats creators. The hosts of The Nod, which became a Spotify-owned program after the company acquired Gimlet Media, spoke in June about its problems with program ownership. The hosts, Brittany Luse and Eric Eddings, say they built their show and audience, but owned nothing.
“At the end of the day, investing in someone’s talent is not the same as having the talent yourself,” said Luse The Verge. “It is very strange that [Spotify and Gimlet] are the only people who can claim ownership over [The Nod and its segments]. “
Still, Spotify continued to sign deals with big names, including Michelle Obama, Kim Kardashian West, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. It also continued to encourage small creators to try podcasting through its creative software, Anchor. Patreon is becoming the antithesis of exclusives – a place where podcasters can reward their most loyal fans while benefiting from the freedom to do whatever they want with their program.