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Audiobooks on Spotify

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Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#31

Post by prepend »

iamacyborg wrote: post #27
JadoJodo wrote: post #2

Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry. I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription co…

> I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. Yep, and I really wish they'd stop promoting absolute turds like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson at me. I have no interest in listening to them.

Not yet, but if you see 20,000 more ads you might have interest.

Spotify is willing to try.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#32

Post by techsupporter »

crazygringo wrote: post #26
JadoJodo wrote: post #2

Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry. I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription co…

I have no issue with it business-wise -- if they don't, they'll eventually die because a podcast/audiobook app expands into music. I just have a major issue with it UX-wise. I wish podcasts and audiobooks were their own separate apps. I've totally given up even trying to understand Spotify's UX anymore. I always eventually manage to play what I want through some combo of scroll/filter/search/history but I just feel l…

> While I'm wishing, I've always wished they'd separate classical music into its own app too...

For what it's worth, a lot of Spotify's customers agree with you and have made third-party apps that try to do this. (I only know they exist but not how good they are since classical music is not my thing. But I kind of understand where classical music fans are coming from since a lot of electronic music, especially earlier works, is "mangled" in the same way.)

The two I know off the top of my head are Concertmaster and Tempso, if that helps.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#33

Post by prepend »

fergbrain wrote: post #14
galoisscobi wrote: post #6

Last time they complained about Apple not supporting Siri integration. Then when Apple added support for that, Spotify never added HomePod Siri support. The idea has ~5k votes and 137 pages of comments on their forum and yet no action from Spotify. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Implement-Na...

I dropped Spotify and went to Apple Music because of this.

I dropped Spotify and went to Apple Music because for $20 I get music, 200GB cloud, and tv vs $15 for Spotify.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#34

Post by counttheforks »

prepend wrote: post #29
willhinsa wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh. How do these companies so thoroughly not understand their own raison d'être?

They understand that they make more money this way even if it pisses off customers. They’ve calculated that the customers who drop because of it is outweighed by the higher profits from playing podcasts.

I remember when they would prominently advertise Jordan Peterson right on the home page of their app. No other podcasts, just him over and over again while I've never used their app for anything other than music.

I contacted their support to ask how to remove these advertisements from the product I paid for, and they told me that this was impossible.

Impossible is a strong word, and installing https://github.com/spicetify proved that it was, in fact, possible to remove the ads for podcasts from their product.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#35

Post by tpxl »

Maxburn wrote: post #9
JadoJodo wrote: post #2

Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry. I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription co…

Spotify is a horrible podcast player. The audio engine doesn't have nuanced speed control or remove silence like other dedicated podcast apps. I also find the podcast UI is terrible for managing shows and play list. And then there's the bugs that don't get fixed for a long time. Last year they had one where every time a podcast was interrupted by a notification or something it would start over from the start. Lastly…

> are not, by definition, a podcast because they don't have a valid rss feed

Does a podcast need to have a rss feed? All I see in definitions is that its an audio format made available over the internet.

> And of course there's zero chance they will embrace podcast 2.0 features

What is Podcasting 2.0? All I see is a bunch of people doing podcasting differently, namely adding ads and crypto.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#36

Post by counttheforks »

prepend wrote: post #31
iamacyborg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. Yep, and I really wish they'd stop promoting absolute turds like Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson at me. I have no interest in listening to them.

Not yet, but if you see 20,000 more ads you might have interest. Spotify is willing to try.

The worst part is that they are showing these ads to paying customers.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#38

Post by counttheforks »

prepend wrote: post #28

Do you know what I hate? Spotify having my credit card. There’s a very low chance I ever buy an audiobook if they integrate with apple’s purchase flow. There’s a zero chance if they had their own flow that pops up and asks me for a credit card. And a separate system to update numbers, cancel stuff, etc etc I get that Spotify wants more money. I’m sure publishers hated selling audiobooks to Barnes & Noble and them tak…

Thanks to 3-D Secure it doesn't really matter who has your credit card details. Relying on the secrecy of a few numbers is silly anyway.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#39

Post by jjice »

As someone who uses Spotify every day, I hate it. I hate their expanding markets while constantly making the app more bloated, slow, and less intuitive. Really, you're going to fill my recommended page with podcasts you've paid a ton of money for exclusivity instead of showing me recommended music that's relevant to me, like they used to? Audiobooks aren't going to make my music experience any better either. Can't wait for a new, slower UI update in 3 months and for them to take away lyrics _again_.

I'm a bit salty here and that's a bit of a rant, but I just want to stream music and they make it progressively harder.

Re: Audiobooks on Spotify

#40

Post by wollsmoth »

JadoJodo wrote: post #2

Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry. I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription co…

I think they have to get some kind of exclusive content. Either they somehow start recording hits and start a war with other streaming services for popular tracks or they have podcasts which I guess are sort of supposed to be like the catalog that video streaming services are trying to build.
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