Might be. I pretty much only listen to comedy podcasts.

I noticed listening to one from the start that there were no adverts at all, neither inserted or from the creators. By episode 9, Spotify was inserting them, by episode 12 they were doing their own sponsorships (which is fair enough).

I guess we know nothing about how it works, wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some sort of toggle switch that the creators can activate with a share in revenue of any ads Spotify injects