Spotify realized that they'll never be profitable with music, the labels have the upper hand and can just raise their share whenever Spotify increases revenue. For exclusive podcasts, they own the entire chain.
What Spotify is doing now is providing sub-par experiences in both. The home screen is cluttered by podcasts when I just want to use Spotify for music (especially infuriating on CarPlay), and the podcast UI is years behind what Pocket Casts offers. It's like they're not even trying to keep up the great service that drew in their customer base in the first place.