171–180 of 236 posts
We have gone full circle. I started with Google Music which had both music and podcasts at the time. Then they took podcasts out of Google Music and made me install a second Google Podcast app just to listen to my podcasts. Then they shut down Google Music and forced me to move to YouTube Music. Now they are shutting down Google Podcasts and integrating that back into YouTube Music. Like WTF.
Google drastically needs portfolio management. The qualifications for this position should be very low, some very basic common sense would do. I suppose they can get away with all of this because the concept of competing for a customer doesn't really exist at Google. They can toy around without any consequences because they have a money printer. Also, at Google's current size, anything producing less than 1B in reven…
There was no strong disincentive for pulling the plug on products without paying customers.
For the past few years, they've been trying to 'correct' that and in the process pissing everybody off.
I really like the simplicity of Google Podcasts, it does one thing and pretty well. I'm also a Spotify user and despise have podcasts mixed with music, so bloated and clunky (also Spotify performance isn't good), music and podcasts are different usecases for me, I'm on different mood. I don't want to jump to YouTube Music, and the last time I did a research, I can't find a simple Podcast app that is free, simple, ad-…
I think the point about separation of Music and Podcasts is an important one for me as well. I really don't like mixing the two, they have two different use cases imo. Drives me nuts how much Spotify pushes podcasts when I just want to listen to some tunes.
Google drastically needs portfolio management. The qualifications for this position should be very low, some very basic common sense would do. I suppose they can get away with all of this because the concept of competing for a customer doesn't really exist at Google. They can toy around without any consequences because they have a money printer. Also, at Google's current size, anything producing less than 1B in reven…
I really like the simplicity of Google Podcasts, it does one thing and pretty well. I'm also a Spotify user and despise have podcasts mixed with music, so bloated and clunky (also Spotify performance isn't good), music and podcasts are different usecases for me, I'm on different mood. I don't want to jump to YouTube Music, and the last time I did a research, I can't find a simple Podcast app that is free, simple, ad-…
Minor question: Why not use the PWA using a different browser engine? Since it’s in its own window anyway. I hear Safari is gaining them this year though I never touch Safari. Edge has it, and Chromium probably does right? I wholly agree however, that mixing music and podcasts in one app is stupid though! If by any chance you’re an Apple person, I’d recommend Overcast. It’s a measly $10 or so per year for ad-free but…
Maybe I should try other chromium-based browser just for that, but also don't feel to have logged in my Google Account in other browser (if YTM has a desktop native app will be similar haha but IDK), hope Firefox desktop at some point support PWA installations. And maybe I'm old, but for products that I interact all day (spotify, figma, slack) I just like native desktop apps detached from browsers, even if they are Electron apps which are essentially a webapp wrapper.
About the Overcast suggestion, I'm a Windows/Ubuntu/Android person, I guess Overcast isn't for me, but I'm willing to pay $10/year for a product like Google Podcasts, I will look for products soon.
Also, Google Podcasts is free and ad-free, I never even see a promoted podcasts or something like that. But than can be one reason why Google shut it down. Google Keep is similar, simple, free and ad-free, I love it, hope they don't shut it down!
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That's an utterly strange response - it's a difference between UI just moving somewhere else and losing service availability. It sounds like you just want to rant?
Podcasts are already in YTM though. Nothing’s moving. They’re killing off a product, plain and simple. Whether that’s no big deal or a big deal is up to every individual. I am assuming anybody who wanted to use YTM for podcasts already is, and it’s not a stretch to say people will probably be annoyed.
This announcement is quite frustrating elsewhere, since we have no idea how good or bad YTM is for Podcast
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It's amazing how incompetent they seem in this area. They even shut down another podcast app before your journey began, called Google listen. Luckily, although you might want Google's proprietary music player to access their subscription content, there's absolutely no reason to use a Google podcast app. I am a fan of Antennapod[0], which is available on F-Droid. [0] https://antennapod.org/
> t's amazing how incompetent they seem in this area You may be surprised at how competent they look internally. If I were a betting man, I'd say each of those transitions went into a promotion/performance packet. I count at least 3 product teams competent at developing podcast features, and were likely rewarded for it.
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I think the point about separation of Music and Podcasts is an important one for me as well. I really don't like mixing the two, they have two different use cases imo. Drives me nuts how much Spotify pushes podcasts when I just want to listen to some tunes.
Spotify thinks if they can get you into Podcasts, which they don’t have to pay a dime for, it will improve their bottom line, since you (probably) can’t simultaneously listen to music that they do have to pay for. Kind of a funny motivation to enter the podcast market, but probably a good business move, as awkward and annoying, and seemingly irrelevant to their brand and core competency as it is.
It's also interesting because the normal optimizations like caching don't apply to licensing fees. At first I was going to suggest that they can cache frequently played songs to save cost, but then I realized that has no impact on royalty fees derived from playtime.