Spotify Buys Gimlet and Anchor

Recode:

Not only has Spotify acquired Gimlet Media, a podcast producer and network, for around $230 million — a deal Recode told you about last week — but it has also bought Anchor, a startup that makes it easier for people to record and distribute their own podcasts.

The company says it isn’t done — it says it has other podcast acquisitions in mind, and that it expects to spend up to $500 million on deals this year.

Anchor was a surprise, but the Gimlet buy has been talked about for a little while.

I have a concern that podcasts are going to be come exclusive to certain platforms and behind a paywall. This article doesn’t say that exactly, but I think we’re going in that direction. That’s the death blow for what started podcasting, in my mind.

Independent podcasters need to resist this.