Spotify and Netflix perfected the business of distraction—and now we’re paying the price

Netflix and Spotify share much in common. The two media companies have spent the first quarter of this century reshaping audience behaviors around on-demand streaming, and normalizing creative economies where consumers pay for subscriptions rather than music and films directly. They are known for their highly personalized recommendation feeds, built with massive pools of behavioral data extracted from users. And both companies operate with what often feels like an ambivalence towards the health of the mediums they’ve disrupted. Now they have a deal. Spotify will begin distributing some of its original video podcasts to Netflix at the start of 2026. Few details were revealed, in terms of monetization or licensing terms; just a list of the sports, pop culture and true-crime titles included. But it makes for a fitting partnership.

[Liz Pelly is the author of ‘Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist’]