Time to get out of Google Podcasts for anyone that is still using the service.

    • @[email protected]
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      02 years ago

      I was looking for you “OMG GOOGLE IS KILLING EVERYTHING!” people. They don’t have infinite money, stuff costs money to run and if it isn’t as popular as their other services obviously they’d shut it down. People use their products for free (monetarily) for years and then bitch and complain when something gets shut down, never having paid a cent.

      • @[email protected]
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        10 months ago

        People use their products for free (monetarily) for years and then bitch and complain when something gets shut down, never having paid a cent.

        Click on the link before commenting, and where did I give a shit about google shutting their stuff down?

  • @[email protected]
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    1412 years ago

    For anyone getting this news here. On Android, one of the best replacements is AntennaPod.

    • no banana
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      2 years ago

      I love Pocket Casts. Sadly I have a hard time recommending it to new people since they switched to subscription model payment. The reason I love it is because of what it was, not what it is. I’m grandfathered into the "pay once, own forever"and if I wasn’t I would probably be using something else these days. I’m still gonna throw it in as a recommendation though, because it’s damn good and people should make up their own minds in whether it is worth the payment.

      • danielfgom
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        12 years ago

        I recommend Podcast Republic. Maybe recommend that to people?

            • no banana
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              12 years ago

              I have pocket casts set up the way I want it and, as I previously said, own the full featured product for life without extra costs. I just don’t see a reason to.

              • danielfgom
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                12 years ago

                That’s fine. I was just saying if you wanted to recommend any other options to your friends who ask you, Podcast Republic on Android is a solid choice to consider. That’s all.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        I really like this app, not so much paying a subscription. But I wanted access on both my phone and my PC and that was the only way to get it.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 years ago

        I use the free tier and it is very good. Does everything I need. I won’t pay for a subscription for a podcast app, so it’s shame I can’t buy it to show my appreciation.

        In any case, the free tier is really good.

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          I pay $10/year for my podcast app (Overcast). Considering it does everything I want it to do that a lot of other apps don’t (or didn’t, years ago when I started with Overcast), and I use it 8+ hours a day it seems reasonable.

      • breakfastmtn
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        42 years ago

        I don’t mind their subscription model. All the subscription features – cloud storage, folders, desktop app, extra themes – really feel like bonus features that aren’t essential.

        • no banana
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          2 years ago

          I guess. I don’t know what I would do without the desktop app and the cloud storage though. I just log in somewhere and everything is synced up and working.

          • breakfastmtn
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            32 years ago

            It depends on your usage, for sure. For me, I’m more on the side of not seeing much there that’s valuable enough to subscribe to, though I’d probably pay a few bucks for the app just to support them. I think that if you’re happy with Google Podcasts, though, you’ll be happy with Pocket Casts without a subscription. It’s not like you have to pay for basic functionality, like downloading or queuing episodes, which is the evil version of the subscription model.

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      I feel like podcasts and their apps is what TV and movies should be.

      Users pick the app they want to use. They optionally pay a fee or not. The app has any and all TV, Movies, music, etc. they want. In the back end, media rights holders have a pre-defined revenue split agreement.

      It’s like federated media.

      • MxM111
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        12 years ago

        I still use the default app. What can be better there?

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I like that I can create my own playlists with multiple sort options. It also has more speed options, as well as its own “shorten pauses” thing where it clips down awkward pauses and stuff.

      • @[email protected]OP
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        22 years ago

        I have come to rather like Downcast on iOS myself. Should check it out if you never have.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 years ago

        I have a lifetime membership with PocketCasts, but I don’t know if I’d chose it today with the subscription. A few months ago, they shipped a buggy version and I temporarily switched to AntennaPod and was considering staying.

        • kratoz29
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          12 years ago

          AntennaPod and was considering staying.

          How do you deal with multi OS support?

    • IronRain
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      92 years ago

      I’m a big fan of Podcast Republic. Great dev, feature-rich, and a much improved UI from when I first started using it.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Podcast Republic is my choice as well. It’s the only Podcast app that I could find that let’s you choose your download folder. I like to play my podcasts with the same app I listen to books with, so I need to download the podcasts to a publicly accessible folder.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Podcast Addict is not quite as streamlined, but has many more features.

      My favorite feature is the “Automatic Rewind” combined with “Incremental rewind”. It adds a rewind everytime you pause and resume an episode that increases the longer the podcast has been paused. It means that if I briefly pause, for example to respond to. Some one in real life talking to me, then it will automatically rewind 5 seconds when I start the podcast again, so I can hear the sentence I was in the middle of in full. But if I leave a podcast alone for a week, then it will rewind 1 minute so I can get fully back into the context of what I was listening to.

      • Blóðbók
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        2 years ago

        What you describe is also a feature of AntennaPod.

        Edit: AntennaPod is also open source.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Awesome! I actually downloaded Antenna Pod to compare, but I can’t seem to find this setting, could you point it out to me?

          • Blóðbók
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            12 years ago

            I don’t know if it’s actually a setting, I’ve only noticed the behaviour. Neat little feature!

      • gen/Eric
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        82 years ago

        Another vote for Podcast Addict. It works with Android Auto in my car :⁠-⁠)

        Now to listen to all these shows I have downloaded…

      • Kid_Thunder
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        122 years ago

        I have used this for years now. It’s really great. I have it set to skip the first 7 minutes of only certain podcasts because they usually have 7 - 8 minutes of ads. I also have it skip silences, which speeds up listening more than I first thought it would.

        • deweydecibel
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          112 years ago

          Podcast Addict is exactly the kind of app I wish were in vogue again. Rather than dropping features and hiding options in a race to be “streamlined”, it’s a properly designed piece of software in the classic sense: its a tool first and foremost. It prioritizes usability first, aesthetics second, and gives you all the buttons and levers to make it your own.

          Like, it’s the kind of app where if you’re using it and think “eh I don’t like this one thing”, if you look in the settings, there’s probably a way to turn it off. God damn what I wouldn’t give for this to be common place design philosophy again.

          Dev is really cool and responsive, too.

          • @[email protected]
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            This is exactly why I run Linux on all my computers, and run as much open-source software as I can, build my own home server, and set up my own home-automation. It does have a time cost, over convenience, but being able to tailor everything to my needs and wants is a wonderful feeling.

            But yes, it would be wonderful if this was a more common mentality in software in general. Especially on mobile devices.

            • Aniki 🌱🌿
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              12 years ago

              That time cost is spent optimizing, learning, and growing as an engineer. I wasn’t always a full time, highly paid system engineer. It started at home, and I marketed those skills.

    • atocci
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      132 years ago

      Also a big fan of AntennaPod, I switched to it back when Google first announced they were axing Podcasts and thought I’d have a lot less time to abandon ship than I ended up with.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Completely fair, it it however worth mentioning that you can disable this data collection in settings.

      • cannache
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        12 years ago

        To be fair perhaps they want to make it possible to download the podcast unencrypted in MP3

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      I went to download it, and apparently I already had! Now to start subscribing to everything again…bleh.

    • Argongas
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      22 years ago

      Thanks for the recommendation. I was wondering what else to try as I sure as hell don’t want to use YouTube and it doesn’t seem like you can have a separate podcast playlist in Spotify.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    32 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Now, a new support article details Google’s plans to kill the product, with a shutdown coming in April 2024.

    I think all the core podcast features exist somewhere, but they are buried in several menus.

    There are more podcast-centric features sequestered away in YouTube Music, where a button with the very confusing label “Save to library” will subscribe to a podcast feed.

    Music is a different interface, site, and app, so none of these billions of YouTube viewers are seeing these podcast features.

    But this is the future of Google’s podcast content, so the company is plowing ahead with it.

    If you’re looking to get off Google’s wild ride and want something straightforward that works across platforms, I recommend Pocket Casts.


    The original article contains 382 words, the summary contains 121 words. Saved 68%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • Optional
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    2 years ago

    10 Google: We’re so rich! Let’s make a product!

    20 Google: kills product

    30 goto 10

    • andrew
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      112 years ago

      You forgot major adoption and promotion for all parties involved.

  • @[email protected]
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    762 years ago

    fuck it, do gmail next, force me to find a proper provider

    who exactly thinks it’s good that things are this ephemeral? what’s the point of even using and enjoying and getting invested in something when they constantly pull this shit?

      • kratoz29
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        82 years ago

        In other words, Google won’t kill what they can use to harvest your data.

    • dinckel
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      2 years ago

      Finding an alternative is the easy part. You can get yourself a domain on Namecheap, and get an email attached to it for pennies.

      Issue is that a lot of services out there don’t consider alternative email providers as valid. Some as a protective measure against spam, some because… fuck knows why, honestly

    • @[email protected]
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      82 years ago

      I mean, before Gmail, I had a new email address every 2-3 years. I’ve had Gmail for what, almost 20 years? That’s not what I’d define as “ephemeral.”

  • @[email protected]
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    272 years ago

    Another service that I didn’t know google even offered until they announced it was dying. There are so many sources that podcast apps can pull from that we don’t need half as many as we have.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 years ago

      I actually really enjoy it. It’s my go to no frills podcast app that isn’t paired with music or other extra stuff

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      Podcasts are just mp3s (or whatever other audio format like ogg). Authors/pod casters should just host them on their site and be done with it. Why let some other company take a lion share of your ad profit. We need less centralized services and more distributed services. Use lemmy or mastodon to promote them. :)

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        There is value in aggregate discoverabilty via these sites. They also post to all of them not just one. Podcast advertising is dying across the board.

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Another one bites the dust

    Sing it (another one bites the dust)

    And another one gone, and another one gone

    Another one bites the dust

    Hey, I’m gonna get you too

    Another one bites the dust

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    They didn’t market this very well. Literally the first time I’m hearing about this