Independent blogs still exist, too. Just like actual podcasts (rss feed to podcast player) will still exist even if Spotify takes over. But I can tell you as somebody deeply involved in podcasting that we get requests to put our content on Spotify because that's the only app many people use for listening to things (whether music or whatever). We're talking about dedicated fans of our shows that took the time to let us know that they stopped listening because of the transition that took place unintentionally in their personal life to being Spotify-only.
This is exactly what happened when FB took over content distribution. People didn't necessarily like it, even as they adopted it because of the convenience.
Putting your podcast on Spotify is completely different than putting your podcast exclusively on Spotify. The former is like creating AMP pages for Google.
Agreed. And very few blogs or news orgs were ever exclusively on FB, but look what happened. After enough were on there, you had to be on there to get any of your content viewed, because your subscribers stopped being subscribers to you and your blog and started being subscribers to FB, and FB became an intermediary between you and your readers. (That, by the way is not just another RSS reader. And Spotify is not just another podcatcher.) Thus, FB had all the control, and once they had consolidated control, they began to turn the screws, refusing to show your content to people who had followed you on their platform, unless you paid up.
Why could they do this? Was it because you were exclusively on their platform? No. It was because your readers were exclusively on their platform. And that is what Spotify is already accomplishing. Slowly but surely, more and more people are using Spotify for all of their listening needs.
Do you see a likely scenario where Spotify will be even 50% of podcast listeners when they are the default app on the dominant platform for listening to podcast and Apple’s podcast directory is the Google of podcasts. It’s used by third parties via a free API.
What I think is more likely is Apple and/or Google responding to Spotify making this aggressive move by doing something similar, which will put the nail in the coffin. And it's worth noting that Netflix wasn't default either, but look at the impact it had.
Netflix made itself the default. Everything that has an internet connection could stream Netflix. The AppleTV had Netflix early on and the Roku comes with a default Netflix button.
This is exactly what happened when FB took over content distribution. People didn't necessarily like it, even as they adopted it because of the convenience.