[HN Gopher] Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024
___________________________________________________________________
Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024
Author : FabianBeiner
Score : 183 points
Date : 2023-09-26 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| sysadm1n wrote:
| https://killedbygoogle.com/
| yrro wrote:
| Google Listen (2009-2012)
|
| Google Play Music (2011 - 2020)
|
| Google Podcasts (2018 - 2024)
| xnx wrote:
| Forgot all about Google Listen!
| pradn wrote:
| Google Podcasts seemed to source its feeds from more sources,
| maybe even the open internet, since podcasts are just RSS feeds,
| more or less. This led to a wider selection, like pirate streams
| with all the episodes of paywalled podcasts.
| gmaster1440 wrote:
| Not so much killed as being rolled into YouTube Music
| sf_rob wrote:
| A fate worse than death. (Joke but I was a heavy Google Music
| user before it suffered the same fate).
| fluidcruft wrote:
| Yeah, I also used Play Music a lot (specifically because you
| could purchase songs and albums). Back in the day I waffled
| between Play Music and Amazon for buying tracks (I'm not in
| the Apple ecosystem).
|
| The forced deathmarch to YouTube Music and its advertisement
| hell was a massive "fuck you" for trusting Google to at least
| not be assholes if you're buying items from them. I had a
| huge library of music purchased on Play and nothing worked to
| backup/download them. All the purchases disappeared in
| YouTube Music. Google "support" with the issues was...
| exactly what you would expect.
|
| I didn't get into podcasts until a few years ago during the
| pandemic. But I refused to ever consider touching Google
| Podcasts. On the one hand with Google you know the entity
| you're dealing with so there's a certain ease that the name
| has vs trusting a different company. But increasingly it's
| just not worth it. They're like an elephant grazing on the
| savanna and you're a dung beetle. You can often find that
| Google shit is usable and useful, but they won't even notice
| if they step on you. I avoid Google if I can avoid it.
| delecti wrote:
| That was an annoying and janky migration, but Youtube Music
| has a better interface than Google Play Music ever did.
|
| Though conceptually it's still just weird. A video that I
| like on youtube because of the video component isn't
| necessarily a song I want to listen to as music. Also it
| really needs the ability to block music from certain artists.
| adhoc_slime wrote:
| As far as the android app goes I disagree. While there are
| minor improvements, there are major steps backwards in
| offline playing, library management and account management.
| An entirely frustrating experience trying to use the app.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I get that different products would be pretty siloed within
| their corporate structure, so I know that they weren't just
| going to use the YouTube code. However, why are products
| that are released well after plenty of other apps have
| forged a path so that the new app can research what works
| and doesn't work, what do people like/not like, and all of
| that type of basic information just so abysmally ignored so
| that this "new" thing is so inferior?
|
| If you're not the first pioneering version of something,
| you better be doing everything the others are doing, but
| better. Otherwise, what's the point of your product?
| KMag wrote:
| I've been out of Google for over a decade, but my
| understanding is that their advancement metrics are still
| rather broken in incentivizing people to reinvent the
| wheel and call it new and innovative, rather than link
| some other team's code and contribute patches back.
| havershank wrote:
| [flagged]
| jhoechtl wrote:
| There will never be block as much as - on Google search
| doesn't work the way it used to. Imagine you blocking
| someone paying a fortune to be relevant.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| Sure if you don't remember the vastly better user
| experience the app had pre-material (I call it googles
| Swing skin) design.
| xnx wrote:
| I was a paid Google Music from way back. The best thing about
| the move to YouTube Music was opening up all kinds of
| independent tracks and mashups that weren't available in
| official music catalogs.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I've been on Google Play Music (and now YT Music) for ~8
| years. YT Music has a different catalog (by my estimation
| it's less complete than GPM's was) and also lets you pull
| up songs/videos from youtube (which can't be downloaded for
| offline listening like other songs, and are just kind of
| mixed in with everything else).
|
| Artist and album descriptions are largely gone, and so is
| the ability to view your listen count of songs, or sort
| songs in your catalog by listen count (which was my
| favourite feature of GPM). I suspect they're doing this
| because they've changed their accounting to get away with
| paying artists less (the % completion rate to 'count' has
| changed, or perhaps they're not counting some listens
| altogether)
|
| The one saving grace of YTM is that its predictive
| playlists are actually pretty decent, and there are a lot
| of them.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I can confirm that the catalog is less complete in YTM
| because back when they shut GPM I took the effort to
| migrate my playlists and I lost quite a few songs of them
| in the progress, and even more then within a year (of
| which YTM can't even tell me the title anymore, it's just
| an unavailable item)
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I agree the content especially from indie folks is a big
| improvement but man is the presentation and UX horrible.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I probably come off as an unhinged google hater to some,
| solely because of my extreme hate for google having killed
| Google Music. I loved that application so much, especially
| before it was reskinned with material.
| packetlost wrote:
| Seconding this. YTMusic is absolute garbage. A disgrace to
| the services it "replaces."
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| The way the Google Play Music vs YouTube Music crap played
| out is the worst (best?) example of "shipping the org chart"
| I can imagine. I worked at Google at the time, and it was
| just ridiculous to watch.
|
| What kind of dysfunctional company deathmarches its users
| like this between two competing brands and products right in
| its own company, and is so committed to doing it wholesale
| that it's willing to mass-lose customers as well as features?
| The kind that puts its internal politics and product
| manager's careers and ideas ahead of customers' needs.
|
| For at least a year after the transition you couldn't
| chromecast from YouTube Music on the web. The internal
| buganizer ticket on the matter was a shitshow. No
| accountability for the fact that we were killing something
| that worked and replacing with something that didn't even
| work with our own products.
|
| Likewise, YTM on Android Auto was a similarly terrible
| backwards step in user interface and capabilities. It's been
| some years so I forget what irked me, but there was a laundry
| list of them.
|
| At one point there were I think 3 Google product places where
| you could play podcasts; YTM, GPM, and Google Podcasts. None
| talking with each other about subscriptions, etc.
|
| That and the whole idea of meshing a video recommendation
| system with a music recommendation system was just busted. My
| kids watched Minecraft or whatever videos on YouTube on the
| family (Android) TV So I started getting recommendations in
| YTM for video game music and what not.
|
| The entire orientation of YouTube is around various random
| clips and the like. A music service like Spotify or (RIP) GPM
| is about albums and singles and EPs. YouTube's whole
| recommendation model wasn't built for it, IMHO.
|
| GPM had a good recommendations engine. YTM pushed top 40 crap
| on me. I tried to tune it, but it failed.
|
| I'd ask my Google display assistant device (I worked on them
| and had a couple around the house) to play some music, and it
| would spool up and start playing a video on YouTube instead.
| Because clearly that's what I'd want.
|
| Harmonizing product lines and concentrating efforts and
| changing brands around etc is entirely reasonable. But you
| don't do it in a way that drops features and pisses off
| customers. You do it carefully and with respect. The way this
| played out was ... YouTube organization "won", Google Play
| team "lost."
|
| I gave up, cancelled my sub, and bought Spotify.
| AbraKdabra wrote:
| I really miss Play Music, sadly I grew accustomed to the half
| baked YouTube Music crap, it's that or fall into the Spotify
| hell.
| frizlab wrote:
| Or Apple Music :)
| zer0zzz wrote:
| I've also come to enjoy Apple Music. Has the same upload
| capabilities I liked with google music plus it matches
| them to lossless these days. Took apple like 5-6 years to
| make the ui not suck but it's decent these days too.
| Also, no joe rogan podcast being recommended to me
| constantly when I just want music and there's a nice
| separate classical music app too.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| I don't think I've ever had a JRE podcast recommended to
| me on Spotify. They seem to have dialed down the podcasts
| in the front page (or at least they did so for people who
| care less about them, like me). I still get some and I
| agree that it's pretty annoying especially when I
| misclick on a podcast (especially jarring since podcasts
| have ads even with premium!)
| zer0zzz wrote:
| Nothing is worse than constantly seeing jre show up on
| your cars CarPlay/android auto screen because of Spotify.
| I will never use them again because of that. Also their
| high bitrate lossless rollout was a lie.
| ashishb wrote:
| If you store music locally or on Google Drive then give
| https://musicsync.ashishb.net/ a try
| ra7 wrote:
| Is Google even serious about YouTube Music? The entire music
| experience, especially on TV with the YouTube app, is downright
| awful. On the Apple TV YouTube app, they don't even have proper
| music controls like repeat, shuffle and so on.
| cglong wrote:
| From an earlier article, if you're wondering the same as me:
|
| > Podcasts in YouTube Music will be available regardless of
| whether you have a YouTube Premium subscription.
| yrro wrote:
| What I'm getting from this is that I will be hearing many
| more ads, and be unable to listen to podcasts if my screen is
| off or if I switch to any other apps on my phone.
| cglong wrote:
| For the latter:
|
| > The company notes that all users can listen to podcasts
| on-demand, offline, in the background, and while casting
| yrro wrote:
| Yeah, for now. I used to be able to split my screen and
| have YouTube running in the background while in other
| apps, until they took that away in an update.
| cglong wrote:
| As a free user on Android, I'm able to use YT in PiP mode
| with any non-music video. Also FWIW, I doubt YT Music
| will ever have enough monopolistic control over the
| podcast industry to take away such fundamental
| functionality.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Will they be available without a Youtube Music subscription
| though? Those are separate subscription plans
| scep12 wrote:
| They already are
| xd1936 wrote:
| Oh yeah, that app that currently has zero podcasts support of
| any kind. Excellent.
| xnx wrote:
| My YouTube Music app has a podcasts section with
| subscriptions, downloads, etc.
| december456 wrote:
| > In addition, Google will also support the option to download
| an OPML file of their show subscriptions from Google Podcasts,
| which they can upload to any app that supports importing if
| they don't want to move to YouTube Music.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| I definitely never saw this coming.
| miohtama wrote:
| Please raise your hands, who is surprised?
| Octabrain wrote:
| It's astonishing the strategy that Google follows with their
| products. This trend of releasing stuff and cancelling it later
| is reaching the point of being meme. Don't get me wrong, I
| totally understand that markets are hard to predict and compete
| in and offering a competent product at those sizes requires a lot
| of economic and human effort but for god sake, I seriously think
| they should plan better and think twice because this is seriously
| damaging their image.
| malermeister wrote:
| Nobody at Google ever got promoted for maintaining an existing
| product.
|
| Creating something new and half-baked is what promo packets are
| made of!
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| slantedview wrote:
| Is nothing sacred at Google? Podcasts is a great simple app that
| does one thing well. I suppose that means Google had to kill it.
| Antip0dean wrote:
| I'm likewise surprised that Scholar, Alerts and Translate still
| exist. The expectation really is that if it's great at what it
| does, but isn't flagship, then it must be killed.
| flybrand wrote:
| It will relaunch as part of Google+ in 2025, along with a
| competing add-in to gmail that you have to pay to remove.
| bigfudge wrote:
| I know sarcasm isn't very hn but this is hard to distinguish
| from a genuine prediction.
| [deleted]
| ashishb wrote:
| After the demise of Google Play Music, I wrote
| https://musicsync.ashishb.net
|
| When the rumors of Google Podcasts being killed started
| circulating, I added podcast support to my app. In many cases
| matching or doing better than the Google Podcasts in terms of
| useful features.
| 12907835202 wrote:
| Podcasts doesn't seem like something I would want to manage
| myself. An album I grab once and keep forever.
|
| A podcast I grab everyday and keep until I've listened.
|
| Your link seems to mostly talk about uploading and managing it
| myself. I'm guessing podcasts don't actually work like this?
| ashishb wrote:
| You just have to add RSS feed URL or you can even search and
| subscribe to podcasts inside the app. And the new episodes
| will be fetched regularly to your phone. The media file won't
| be downloaded unless you enable that.
|
| Sorry the unclear description. I'll fix it.
| fourseventy wrote:
| 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.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Gotta launch (and shut down) to get promos!
| politelemon wrote:
| This is what really annoys me. For certain there will be
| people at g noticing this constant bouncing about so that
| some pointless product manager can get their promotion and
| bonus. They are noticing the damage this does to them. And
| it's even possible they are highlighting it. But they are
| completely unable to do anything about it.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Full circle is splitting it off again to Google Listen. Either
| way I wanted to migrate to podcasts for a couple years but they
| never had opml support. I just hope they might take it slightly
| more serious now, add some playlists and transcription since
| it's part of youtube. But knowing Google.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| 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/
| zer0zzz wrote:
| Oh man, wait until you hear how incompetent they are at
| messaging apps.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| And health apps
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| FFS.
|
| How do I subscribe to Podcasts on an Android phone now?
| rozim wrote:
| Which podcast app works best on Android Auto?
| ilyt wrote:
| PodcastAddict works fine
| tobz1000 wrote:
| Pocket Casts has been reliable for me for a few years.
| TOMDM wrote:
| The functionality is being migrated into youtube music
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| Youtube music has no functionality.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| YT music is good for discovering new music, but otherwise
| pretty shit compared to Google Play Music (and I doubt it
| will be any better for Podcasts)
| delecti wrote:
| TFA explains the situation pretty well.
|
| Google Podcasts is still around until next year, and the
| Youtube Music app will have that functionality added this year.
| It's all in the first paragraph.
| matthewfelgate wrote:
| YouTube.com/podcasts doesn't even fucking work outside the
| USA.
| delecti wrote:
| Yeah, because them adding podcast functionality is going to
| happen in the future. They haven't done it yet, that's what
| that means.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.
|
| They said the same thing with Google Play Music, and never
| added the same functionality to YT music, which is massively
| inferior for everything besides discovering new music
| rozenmd wrote:
| Podcast Addict, been using it long before Google decided to try
| a podcast app.
| Latty wrote:
| A good option for power users, probably a bit overwhelming if
| you just want something simple, but for someone like me that
| wants to do stuff like different default playback speeds for
| different podcasts, it's really good.
| blfr wrote:
| I highly recommend AntennaPod[1]. If you need/want sync, it can
| be achieved though gpodder[2].
|
| [1] https://antennapod.org/
|
| [2] https://gpodder.net/
| xocdan wrote:
| I use PocketCast. Can't say I've investigated privacy or other
| concerns but it is free and seems quite functional with a good
| UI.
| xocdan wrote:
| I use Pocket Casts [1]. Can't say I've investigated privacy
| or other concerns but it is free and seems quite functional
| with a good UI.
|
| [1] https://pocketcasts.com/
| jpeeler wrote:
| I wish there was an open source backend service for
| syncing. Since the clients are open source, should be
| technically possible to replicate the functionality of the
| cloud service. But maybe that's harder than just creating
| from scratch? Too bad though because pocket casts is
| definitely one of the best android clients around.
| sronors wrote:
| Been using Antenna[0] for years now, highly recommend!
|
| [0] https://antennapod.org/
| aorth wrote:
| PocketCasts is open source and is decent. It was bought by
| Automattic (who also own and develop WordPress), so should be a
| reasonably safe bet going forward.
| dtech wrote:
| There's hundreds of alternatives... I've used Pocket Casts and
| Podcast Addict and both work fine.
| pwdisswordfishc wrote:
| There were Google Podcasts?
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Yes, I'm using it. I first started using Spotify for podcasts
| but those idiots (sorry Spotify) don't let you disable the auto
| play so it automatically starts a new podcast after you finish
| one. At least on the free tier. I then switched to Google. The
| reason I care is that I often listen to podcasts when I'm in
| bed at night as it helps me sleep.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| The autoplay is extra annoying when listening to an older
| episode too. When you go to the full list it automatically
| jumps to the one last played. Scrolling long lists in Spotify
| is very buggy.
|
| The only way to fix it is mark the newly-started episode as
| played, then mark as unplayed. So many extra steps that
| shouldn't even be necessary in the first place.
| sebdufbeau wrote:
| For me, Spotify on Mobile has a sleep timer functionality and
| one of the options of "End of episode". I do have premium so
| cannot confirm if it exists on the free tier.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| Why anyone would use a proprietary podcasting app is beyond me!
| (Particularly one from Google with basically had a 100% chance of
| getting canceled....)
|
| https://antennapod.org/ is incredible! 10/10, highly recommend!
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| Sync between devices. I guess Pocket Casts does that too, but
| it was also proprietary (and paid) when I started to use Google
| Podcasts.
| azangru wrote:
| > Why anyone would use a proprietary podcasting app is beyond
| me!
|
| It's preinstalled on Android. Easy to get started... Defaults
| are a powerful thing.
|
| Thanks for the recommendation! I was just looking for another
| app to switch to.
| mdaniel wrote:
| AntennaPod is good if you value FLOSS over UX, but I continue
| to get my money's worth from https://play.google.com/store/ap
| ps/details?id=com.bambuna.po... (it's IAP, so you don't have
| to pay to try it)
|
| I just happen to still have my notes where I was evaluating
| players a while back and here's why I chose Podcast Addict
| over AntennaPod, with this written from the perspective of
| "why not AntennaPod"
|
| * auto download should be configurable per podcast, ideally
| with number of episodes to retain
|
| * auto skip intro, outro seconds should be configurable per
| podcast
|
| * delete from Queue view doesn't remove it from the queue nor
| even mark it as played
|
| * ui treatment makes currently playing overlap with the
| played marker on queue items
|
| * bamboo menu for an episode should offer delete
|
| * delete and remove from queue doesn't clear it from the now
| playing bar
|
| * it should stop after episode if sleep timer is active <--
| this one is a solid, 100% deal breaker for any app that
| doesn't support it
| mertd wrote:
| I had moved from Podcast Addict to Google Podcasts.
|
| PA is slanted way to heavily towards the power user. I just
| want to see my feed chronologically, pick one and hit play.
| pb7 wrote:
| Original title: "Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with
| listeners migrated to YouTube Music"
| rickdeckard wrote:
| (to migrate users to YouTube Music)
|
| YT Music seems to be where Google Media apps shift their users to
| when they retire.
|
| --
|
| Must be fun to be on that dev-team:
|
| "We have a new high-priority ticket: Add podcast-support to
| inherit users from podcast app. Ok, so I guess we move the
| 'Compete with Spotify/AppleMusic' stories back to the funnel"
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I guess youtube music is youtube sound now?
| jjice wrote:
| The state of podcasting software is kind of sad now. The initial
| concept behind podcasts with RSS feeds was so neat and freeing,
| but podcasts have been reigned into private services due to user
| convenience and existing market share for audio. Having Spotify
| handle podcast management for me is great and it's handy but I
| would much rather have an agnostic app with inputs for RSS feeds.
| There are just so many podcasts that aren't available via an RSS
| feed anymore though, continuing to push us into private apps.
|
| I guess I'm not helping but I literally can't for many podcasts
| now.
| jlkuester7 wrote:
| > There are just so many podcasts that aren't available via an
| RSS feed anymore though
|
| If I need a proprietary app to access a show's feed, then IMHO
| it should not be considered a podcast (and I refuse to listen
| to it).
|
| That being said, I remain cautiously optimistic about the
| podcasting ecosystem. A huge number of high-quality shows
| remain freely available (and many shows sustain an independent
| revenue stream). Despite the creeping centralization,
| podcasting still feels very independent when compared to things
| like Youtube/Tiktok.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Having Spotify handle podcast management for me is great and
| it 's handy but I would much rather have an agnostic app with
| inputs for RSS feeds._
|
| What about the Spotify app keeps you using it, even though (1)
| they're a parasitoid on the open podcasting ecosystem and (2)
| have successfully destroyed the original, open meanings of
| "podcast" and "podcasting"?
| coldpie wrote:
| Huh? I use Apple Podcasts, and used Google Podcasts before I
| switched to iPhone. Haven't seen an issue like that. Everything
| I care about seems to be available on everything, and it's easy
| to add RSS feeds (e.g. from Patreon) in both apps. Maybe you
| should try using a less hostile app?
| pentagrama wrote:
| 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-free, and has desktop web+native phone app support like Google
| Podcasts.
|
| I guess I have to have to pay _other_ subscription now :/. Will
| try YouTube Music but I'm quite sure will not like it.
|
| Note aside: I have YouTube Premium subscription for the ad-free
| experience, and has YouTube Music included, but to listen to
| music I prefer Spotify Premium _only_ because has a desktop app,
| I just can't have Spotify on my browser tabs, and since I use
| Firefox I can't install the pwa-webapp. If I can have installed
| the desktop app/pwa-webapp I'm sure I will dich Spotify for sure.
| Sorry for the unrelated rant but I just remember that.
| wetpaws wrote:
| [dead]
| jaderobbins1 wrote:
| 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.
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| I once tapped on a podcast link that someone sent me that
| opened in Spotify. I was haunted by podcast recommendations
| for months, if not years afterwards. I honestly wouldn't care
| if there was a completely separate tab in the app that didn't
| influence recommendations.
| smsm42 wrote:
| In a year or two somebody would realize that YT is for videos and
| it doesn't make sense to keep music and podcasts there, and a new
| Google service is born... It's the circle of life.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| The amount of people who use YouTube to listen to music around
| the world is massive.
| hiidrew wrote:
| Add it to the list: https://killedbygoogle.com/
| mywacaday wrote:
| This is infuriating, I had just migrated from Stitcher to google
| Podcasts
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Remember Google Videos ???.
|
| Could for the life not understand back then why Youtube and this
| existed at the same time.
|
| It make sense - move all consumer content under the Youtube brand
| - hopefully the teams working on these products don't have the
| same "I got to start a new team to launch another shitty
| duplicated product in order for top management to notice and
| promote us.
|
| The folks working on Youtube are doing great work even if most
| Googlers higher up might think it is so mundane and boring - it
| pays the bills.
| zer0zzz wrote:
| This is why I scoff at folks who want rcs to be adopted
| everywhere. How can google be trusted to maintain anything past
| what seem like pretty consistent expiration dates?
| [deleted]
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Oh no, not that service I never used because I learned my lesson
| trusting Google with basic media organizational applications!
|
| Seriously, it's sad that they broke their reputation on this, but
| the writing was on the wall from day zero. If you're an Android
| user, I recommend BeyondPod
| (http://www.beyondpod.mobi/android/index.htm): it's simple, it's
| reliable, it integrates to a search engine, and it also supports
| pasting in links with authentication so you can get any Patreon
| exclusive feeds you have access to (something that, to my
| knowledge, Google Podcasts was never able to support).
| izacus wrote:
| HN moderators: why was title changed from more accurate "Google
| Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with listeners migrated to YouTube
| Music" to misleading "Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024" ?
| asplake wrote:
| Title length can be a problem
| dredmorbius wrote:
| <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8373758>
| zer0zzz wrote:
| This title was most charitable as rolling anything into YouTube
| is a fate worse than death.
| [deleted]
| nabakin wrote:
| Could have been OP btw. You can change the title after making a
| post
| FabianBeiner wrote:
| The HN title has always been the current one, nobody changed
| anything here. When I wrote the title, I was actually about to
| post another link (https://www.androidpolice.com/google-
| podcasts-discontinued-a...), but I would rather not write "will
| die in" (as used in the headline of Android Police), so I went
| for "to shut down in".
| ghusto wrote:
| "Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024" isn't misleading, that's
| exactly what's happening. The fact that they're trying to force
| people onto YouTube Music isn't relevant for me.
| izacus wrote:
| 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?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Except for some exclusive podcasts, which Google has zero,
| podcasts are an open standard. Google Podcasts is just one
| of many clients, so there was never a worry of service
| availability. All podcast apps except Spotify are just
| different UI.
| ghusto wrote:
| Google Podcasts, the app (and website?) is shutting down.
| It will no longer exist. Re-framing it as its UI moving
| somewhere else is a bit like if WhatsApp was to be
| shuttered and moved to Facebook Messenger, and you said
| "it's not becoming unavailable, its UI is being moved to to
| Facebook Messenger".
| andybak wrote:
| > The fact that they're trying to force people onto YouTube
| Music isn't relevant for me.
|
| With all due respect, it's probably relevant to other people.
| theonlybutlet wrote:
| To be fair, I just received an email from Google entitled
| "Google Podcasts is going away". Until I read your post I
| wasn't aware they were doing this.
| iteratethis wrote:
| 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 revenue per month is frankly not that interesting. Small
| stuff.
| nytesky wrote:
| On a related note, we have a Google dot, and asking it to play a
| podcast, it ALWAYS resumes from the last episode I listened to in
| that podcast, often weeks old. I can't get it to simply play the
| latest episode of random podcast
| kstrauser wrote:
| Dot is Amazon. Do you have a Google or Amazon device?
| nytesky wrote:
| Google Nest Hub, and a Google puck Nest Mini? I never know
| what to call them, I know they deprecated Nest name and
| pushed everyone to Google Home app so never know what it's
| called today.
|
| But Google device, playing Google podcast and it ALWAYS
| RESUMES even when I try all sorts of verbal command
| iterations (play latest, play todays episode, etc)
| bkanber wrote:
| I actually like the google podcasts app. It's simple, it works,
| no ads, does everything I need it to do. Sigh. RIP.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| TBH this doesn't matter that much, as there are plenty of other
| great podcast apps that one can use. This is one of the things I
| love most about the podcast ecosystem is that (at least for now),
| it's a very open platform with the exception of Spotify
| exclusives.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Off-topic: Would be great to have a way again to simply share
| links to podcast-episodes which work regardless of the used app.
|
| Before the podcast-hype one could simply share the direct-link to
| the audio-file.
|
| Now all you get are links which require Google/Apple/Spotify to
| open.
|
| (But realistically, I don't know who would be willing to drive
| this. It would need backing from at least Google/Apple/Spotify to
| maintain a central catalogue, and the incentive seems to be
| low...)
| tantalor wrote:
| I would assume that's not too hard given most podcasts use RSS
| or similar for distribution.
|
| Whether each individual episode is a separately entity (like,
| with a distinct URI or whatever) within that format, I don't
| know.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| It's not that trivial to do as an end-user. If I listen to a
| podcast on Spotify which I'd like to share with you (who
| doesn't use Spotify), I would have to Google that podcast and
| try to find a RSS-Link for it, which becomes more and more
| difficult as most pages now link directly to Spotify or Apple
| and provide no RSS-url.
|
| Ideal would be an URI like podcast:// which apps could simply
| register for on OS-level, but I frankly don't know which
| entity would actually want to drive such a standardization.
| resters wrote:
| How is it that we live in 2023 and apple's native podcast app is
| pretty mediocre and now Google is killing one that was slightly
| better.
| dcdevito wrote:
| [dead]
| bArray wrote:
| Would be good if Google made the URLs redirect for RSS feeds and
| libraries to seamlessly pickup.
|
| I would suggest that anybody creating their own media hosts this
| in a variety of locations, and not rely on a single point of
| failure.
| treypitt wrote:
| Good riddance, what a dumpster fire. The tiny buttons for pause,
| replay, skip buttons are all right next to each other on the lock
| screen, so you often skip podcasts when you really want to pause
| or fast forward. on the other hand, the rewind 10-seconds button
| has half the real estate of the widget. Downloads arent
| automatically deleted even after the episode is completed (even
| if you mark as played or remove from queue). There's no skip
| intro/outro options.
|
| Frankly, the Overcast app is one of the main things attracting me
| to iOS at this point, and a dearth of good native podcast clients
| is hurting the Pixel/Google ecosystem
| klauserc wrote:
| I'm pretty happy with _Podcast Republic_ on Android. Its a bit
| of a "power user" app, but I have yet to find something that I
| want to tweak that it doesn't let me tweak via its vast
| settings menus.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Have you tried Pocket Casts? https://pocketcasts.com/
|
| It's now owned by Automattic (of Wordpress.com and tumblr) and
| the clients are open source
|
| https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-android
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Second this. I tried Overcast and moved back. The
| availability of an Android app and web client that syncs your
| progress is amazing.
| aport wrote:
| I've used Pocket Casts for ~8 years. Can't recommend it
| enough, a really great app.
| robertoandred wrote:
| > The move will leave only Apple among the major players that
| hasn't consolidated music and podcasts into a single destination
|
| Apple just finished UNbundling everything from one monolithic
| app, now people want it back?
| syncbehind wrote:
| As they say, those who don't understand / learn from history
| are doomed to repeat it. Apple learned that having them
| separate was more beneficial, a lesson Google and Spotify have
| not.
| nkrebs13 wrote:
| I've never understood this bundling. I listen to a lot of
| podcasts and a lot of music. I always know what I want to
| listen to. I don't need or want podcasts cluttering up my music
| app when I'm trying to play or discover music. I don't need or
| want music cluttering up my podcasts when I am trying work
| through my infinitely long podcast queue. It's never the case
| that I'm looking for _either_ a podcast or music to fill the
| silence.
|
| Different use cases. Different audio mediums. Different apps.
| booboofixer wrote:
| Unpopular opinion: i loved it and used it everyday, sad to see a
| lightweight app with no BS on any part of the screen die.
| nabakin wrote:
| I love the balance between simplicity and utility. Ability to
| download podcasts for later, queue them up into a playlist,
| cast to a device, easily search through thousands of existing
| podcasts but able to add the RSS if needed, timeline for recent
| podcast episodes, etc
| ceshm wrote:
| Same here, I switched from apple podcasts after their home re-
| organization that ruined the experience for me. Guess I should
| have known better.
| alphabettsy wrote:
| Try Pocket Casts, that's where I went from Apple Podcasts and
| haven't looked back.
| gdsdfe wrote:
| Another one bites the dust
| tivert wrote:
| Google executive leaders must have been worried that users might
| start trusting Google's apps again, so hatched this plan to
| maintain Google's well-known reputation.
|
| When looking at business leaders, it's best to assume scary
| competence and that they always know what they're doing. After
| all, if they weren't impossibly better than us mere mortals, why
| would the market have granted them such high-paid CEO jobs?
| zer0zzz wrote:
| The way they keep killing apps (affects android) and the way
| they killed their line of pixel laptops is the primary reason
| why I will not be migrating off of the iPhone/Mac continuity
| combo anytime soon. I really like when my apps and services
| don't get canceled and when a lot of them just kinda work
| consistently across the two computers I use most. Can't get
| that from google and Microsoft gave up on phones so...
| WesleyLivesay wrote:
| I'm not necessarily super surprised, the uptake on Google
| Podcasts always seemed very low.
| karaterobot wrote:
| Does this mean that people who are paying for subscriptions to
| Youtube Music so they can listen to music will now be flooded
| with recommendations and ads for podcasts, just like on Spotify?
| dalbasal wrote:
| Podcasting, like wikipedia, Linux, WWW and a few other relatively
| "free" objects are such an important counterexamples. There's so
| much to learn from all of them, like theoretical devices come to
| life.
|
| The inability of big services (EG, google, apple) to monopolize
| or gatekeep podcasting relates directly to their failure to make
| money.(1) the protocol's minimal snooping options relates to the
| failure to implement _digital_ adtech... and to the lack of good
| discovery /recommendation services. The unique freedom
| capabilities podcasting seems to have. The barriers(2) to
| entry... all so interlocked.
|
| Spotify's big money attempt to make money off podcasting is/was
| all about buying exclusivity. Paying big podcasters (eg rogan) to
| remove their podcast from other players... podcasts spotify
| already had free access to. Not shocking or surprising, but
| instructive. They very big money... more than anyone would likely
| invest on podcasting proper.
|
| The market panic when netflix realised it was in a competitive
| market with price pressure from both consumers and producers
| because competition. How are you supposed to have 50% profit
| margins like that! Google would rather walk away from a market
| than concede anything short of full price setter mode on either
| end.
|
| There's this point where Peter Thiel and Karl Marx are finishing
| each other's sentences and drinking Rum. I'm starting to think
| that point is a certain type of prevailing market condition. The
| rest is derivative.
|
| _" Google says it plans on further increasing its investment in
| the podcast experience on YouTube Music and making it more of a
| destination for podcast fans with features focused on discovery,
| community, and switching between audio podcasts and video. The
| latter is something rival Spotify has also"_
|
| Anyone remember the "HD video race?" Online video was obviously a
| big thing. Bandwidth & quality were big problems receding as fast
| as broadband expanded. Google had an in-house video hosting
| service. They bought youtube. Other services still existed.
| Google effin plowed forward. They smoked everyone with their
| ability to implement HD streaming at massive scale. No one could
| keep up.
|
| Now Google's PR statements refer to breakthrough features like
| "backgrounding video" as a multi-year effort to reach feature
| parity with spotify. oy.
|
| Google _can_ successfully do many things. The are capable of
| making excellent products. I think they 're also capable of
| making many more economically viable products. However... the
| enormous profit margins they enjoy make anything short of
| monopoly pointless.
|
| (1)Google literally sell ads on those same podcasts via youtube.
| (2) At some point, "barrier to entry" goes negative. Early
| blogging tech lowered barriers to entry. Referring to modern
| social media's "barriers" feels like discussing the "challenge"
| of eating caramel popcorn dusted with coke.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| TIL Google had a podcasts app
| dylan604 wrote:
| the killedbygoogle list just grew a little bit longer
| dirtyid wrote:
| They had one of the OG podcast apps, Google Listen from 2009,
| year after first Android phone release. Probably part of
| someones 5%. Which was surprisingly functional, and of course
| they killed it 3 years later.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| There it is.
| noirscape wrote:
| Against better judgement, I was using that.
|
| Great...
|
| Remember kids, never build anything onto Google.
| Zetobal wrote:
| Ffs... I am a really good predictor for what Google is killing
| next. I just started using it because it was preinstalled on the
| pixel and I was lazy.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Same. Simple app that I use to listen to a sleep podcast
| because I can't listen to the Patreon feed on Spotify.
| nevereveragain wrote:
| They _still_ don't support adding a custom feed?
|
| That miss was what pushed me to google podcast in the first
| place, along with their absolute refusal to fix broken feeds
| for existing podcasts in their index.
| TeddyDD wrote:
| Same here. Lazyness bit me. Back to antennapod I guess.
| Filligree wrote:
| It's getting rolled into YouTube Music, not killed off.
|
| The UI might not be as good. I guess we'll see.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| It's getting killed off. Some features from Google Podcasts
| may make their way into YT Music, but I doubt all of them
| will (the Google Play Music 'migration' told me everything I
| need to know)
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Why did Google fail to turn "simple" apps like Google Podcasts
| and Google Reader into low maintenance apps?
|
| Google Podcasts is so simple it could even have been an open
| source reference app showcasing Flutter and some backend GCP
| services.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Internal promo economy.
|
| Same reason Reader got killed.
|
| Nobody wants to work on that.
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