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Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

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Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#241

Post by jack_pp »

Mandatum wrote: post #239
tshaddox wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently gave Spotify a try for about 8 months but just switched back to Apple Music. My reason for switching back had nothing to do with podcasts, it was simply Spotify's terrible interface that makes it impossible to just browse all the music in your library . But I had also started to notice podcasts infiltrating UI that used to be only music playlists. A few times I even mistakenly clicked on a podcast thinking…

Yeah but on the flip side -- nothing beats Spotify recommendations. I've found so much new music - if you're a new artist no other platform would provide more value than Spotify for discovery. Now, if we're talking pay-the-rent value..

Youtube music has been great for music recommendations lately. I rarely use Spotify anymore even though I pay for it

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#242

Post by xdennis »

joshlemer wrote: post #158
towb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I liked JRE, but even as a Spotify user, I don't listen to him anymore. I used this long podcasts to fall asleep to but had to stop now with spotify. I cast it to a google home mini and set the volume to pretty low, so I just can hear what they say pretty much, but at a random point spotify stops it and plays an ad at volume level 9000+ and doesn't resume play. How bad isn't that? Oh and Joe is getting less likeable…

> Joe is getting less likeable lately... Agreed - he always had a noticeable tilt on issues but lately it seems to be all about scoring sick dunks on SJW's. I was also surprised how little prep he apparently does before podcasts. During the latest Elon Musk episode he learned on-air that the reusable rockets land propulsively (as opposed to using parachutes or otherwise). It's odd to have possibly the richest man in…

> lately it seems to be all about scoring sick dunks on SJW's

I'm surprised you'd say that considering that Spotify has banned controversial episodes with Stefan Molyneux, Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulos, David Seaman (the pizza gate guy not the footballer), etc.

I'm not sure he'll be able to have them on now. He did have Alex Jones again, but it was more fact checked than the previous episodes.

I'd say he's less conspiratorial now.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#243

Post by lucb1e »

kevincox wrote: post #223
crocodiletears wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a latecomer to the 'history of *' podcast genre. Recently been working through Revolutions. Antennapod lets you sort a podcast's episodes chronologically, reverse-chronologically, alphabetically, etc.

Yes but the auto-download feature doesn't work.

Oh I thought it was about sorting as well. Frankly, if you spend 30 seconds tapping download on the next 30 episodes every few weeks, that solves the issue?

I use Spotify at the moment (thinking of switching back to Antennapod due to Spotify being buggy as fuck) and actually hit download on every episode I want to listen to: putting them in my downloads is the easiest way to both mark them as 'to be listened to' as well as having them available whenever (though that's one of the bugs: I'll still need internet to get permission from Spotify HQ to start playing, but I won't have to load the audio stream and can turn off internet once it's playing).

Or you could just grab the files and dump them into a folder for something like smart audiobook player -- that's what I'd do for anything longer than ~6 hours in total, don't want to keep track of that stuff in my podcast player which is for, well, podcasts, not (cut-up) audio books.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#244

Post by lucb1e »

mertd wrote: post #19
vlunkr wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus you can always skip them with a couple of button presses.

I can see a future where podcasts move to a walled garden (Spotify) and the fast forward button gets disabled during ads.

The Spotify® ads are not part of the episode, it launches a new file basically and you get a new seek bar that says 30 seconds total rather than it being part of the audio stream that you downloaded. I was frankly surprised it let me seek to the end, but yeah that's not gonna last long.

Also, I'm a premium member and I got ads on a podcast (from one of the ones they own themselves no less!). Fuck that shit. Unsubscribed from that podcast and will also from any others when I hear they're now "exclusive". I don't need more ads for products that I already paid for in my life. I also keep considering reverting to the pirate bay and a €13 128GB sd card, since the player is rather buggy and I can see in my firewall that the app tries to report who-knows-what to Facebook and other advertisers (again, as a premium member...), but it's not Spotify that would hurt the most from that so I feel like there isn't really a point.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#245

Post by [deleted] »

smegger001 wrote: post #234
loosetypes wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audible has been doing similarly recently and it’s quite frustrating. I understand everyone’s doing it and you as a company feel entitled to a slice of whatever podcast pie. What I don’t understand is how that can take focus when your audio player has been getting steadily worse - corrupted offline download, buggy buffering, choppy audio after jumping back 30s. If your bread and butter - what I’m actually paying for…

lets not forget the awful UI for podcasts on audible. Only showing the last three episodes in the app having to go through multiple screens just to download back episodes, having to manually start the next episode instead of playing them automatically. having to subscribe to each season of the same podcast separately so if you don't already know they next is out you don't get it, the whole experience is painful enoug…

[deleted]

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#246

Post by bscphil »

jonpurdy wrote: post #27
brandonmenc wrote: post #7

I don't really consider these things "podcasts" anymore. There are a couple (imo, "real") podcasts I subscribe to and pay for, but I pay the creators directly and they generally self-host the files. Any other business model is just a network-exclusive TV or radio show, not a podcast.

I agree; they shouldn't be called podcasts if they don't conform to RSS and don't work in standard podcast apps. They're time-shifted audio shows sure, but not podcasts.

Yep, I was going to say that it was actually Apple Music / Podcasts that killed podcasts, because that was the first site I saw podcast creators exclusively link to versus an aggregator or RSS feed. It marked the turning of the tide, where it even started to be considered acceptable not to have an RSS feed.

To be fair, this effect was limited at the time to "podcasts" released by relatively wealthy people mostly in New York, among whom not using Apple products was basically unheard of. Spotify seems to be taking this mainstream, but I think the problem started before they got into the podcast business.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#247

Post by lucb1e »

rchaud wrote: post #105
brandonmenc wrote: post #7

I don't really consider these things "podcasts" anymore. There are a couple (imo, "real") podcasts I subscribe to and pay for, but I pay the creators directly and they generally self-host the files. Any other business model is just a network-exclusive TV or radio show, not a podcast.

> Any other business model is just a network-exclusive TV or radio show, not a podcast. That's where the money is. Spotify isn't a tech company, it's a radio station that exists to sell subscriptions plus ads.

I wish radio stations in my country played music that I like. Perhaps then I'd ever have listened to one. Not to mention that you can't pick what a broadcast radio plays. Aside from that they can both play audio, it seems rather incomparable to me...

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#248

Post by lucb1e »

coldacid wrote: post #174

I can't believe I didn't notice right away that this "article" is a native ad for Spotify. Ugh. Meanwhile, the open podcast ecosystem keeps getting better instead of dying off like Spotify and Apple wish it would. [Podcast Index] and the Podcasting 2.0 ecosystem around it is helping keep podcasting free and open. * https://podcastindex.org

Can't quite say that I found it to be casting Spotify in a positive light, which seems odd if you think it's an ad.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#249

Post by bscphil »

coldacid wrote: post #174

I can't believe I didn't notice right away that this "article" is a native ad for Spotify. Ugh. Meanwhile, the open podcast ecosystem keeps getting better instead of dying off like Spotify and Apple wish it would. [Podcast Index] and the Podcasting 2.0 ecosystem around it is helping keep podcasting free and open. * https://podcastindex.org

Is it really? Is there evidence of this? (Honestly asking, I'm curious about the prevalence of native advertising and astroturfing.)

From their about page, the author appears to work for Oracle and has a similar article praising an Apple product that I remember doing big numbers here at HN when it came out.

Re: Spotify is killing the open podcast ecosystem (2020)

#250

Post by dominotw »

klelatti wrote: post #33

Joe who? Seriously, I think that there are a number of reasons why this won't pan out as predicted: - There aren't really any tent-pole, must listen podcasts. They thought Joe Rogan was one but I'm hearing a lot of people have stopped listening to him on Spotify (I have). - Spotify (and others) don't have the money to buy out the whole podcast ecosystem and many podcast makers I think would resist going Spotify exclu…

I stopped listening to rogan after spotify but he did a series of JRE MMA including one with GSP, those made me listen to spotify.
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