Well, yeah, of course there’s a fundamental problem with Spotify’s business model. They’re a middleman for digital content.

Well...yes, not necessarily fundamental, but it's the same class of problem cinemas and restaurants have (to pick two). What do cinemas mainly make money from? What do restaurants mainly make money from?

The popcorn and soda are valueadds for both - it’s not like a restaurant gets you to “subscribe” and then tries to convince you to not eat anything.

The buffets may be the closest and they don’t really seem to care at all, because the price differential is so high.

So Spotify is likely undercharging by 50% or more.

Yes, that seems to be true (and is that % you've guessed maybe too low? Maybe far too low?). Even with that though, it's extraordinarily fine margins -- w/r/t the businesses that I mentioned, the majority of the income comes from those value-adds, if they weren't there it would generally be difficult for the businesses to survive financially. That's where I was coming from.

To me, Spotify seems to be using podcasts in a similar way. I assume it's because the central business model is unsustainable when combined with investor pressure; they can't just focus on core product because they're burning too much of other people's money in an attempt to outcompete everyone else

I mean, they are not currently a profitable company, nor do I think the profit outlook is good for them under their current model.