[HN Gopher] Google Podcasts service shuts down in the US next week
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Google Podcasts service shuts down in the US next week
Author : marban
Score : 32 points
Date : 2024-03-29 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bleepingcomputer.com)
| willio58 wrote:
| I can only chuckle when I read things like this. There was
| another post on the homepage today talking about how podcasts in
| general are still growing in popularity. But Google fumbled the
| bag yet again!
| kevmoo1 wrote:
| There's some consolidation here. Podcast support in YouTube
| music is a real thing.
|
| There is SO much overlap between YouTube Music videos and
| listening to music. There is also overlap between YouTube
| podcasts and listening to podcasts.
|
| Trying to align here makes a lot of sense. Tricky to pull off,
| sure, but it's not a dropped ball.
| nikkwong wrote:
| There are many podcasts that exist on Google podcasts but
| aren't listed on YouTube music. Maybe around 20% of my
| podcast collection doesn't exist on YouTube music; and they
| aren't fringe podcasts either. Many are very mainstream. This
| makes YouTube music an inadequate replacement
| microflash wrote:
| You can directly add podcasts by their feed URL. They don't
| have to be on YouTube music. The discovery for such
| podcasts is non-existent, though.
| mindslight wrote:
| Consolidating products makes sense to an engineer, but in
| general companies seek to create many redundant brands to
| confuse the market. For example Faceboot+Instagram, or how
| entire store aisles are filled as a simulation of more
| choices than just P&G and J&J.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Honestly, at this point I hope the shut down most of the
| company. They tried to do everything, but ultimately they just
| showed that their corporate structure couldn't scale to that
| many employees.
| TillE wrote:
| It's rarely mentioned, but a major casualty of the Reader
| shutdown was Google Listen, a perfectly good podcast app which
| I think was just somebody's side project. It used Reader as a
| backend, so you could also manage your feeds in a browser.
| Really cool.
|
| It's just another example of Google failing to even keep their
| options open to take advantage of future developments. "Serial"
| would make podcasts mainstream just a year or so later.
| hiddencost wrote:
| AntennaPod is better than Google Podcasts.
|
| I was upset until I switched, and then glad I got pushed to
| switch.
| monkeywork wrote:
| Pocketcast is my fav
| emddudley wrote:
| AntennaPod is what I moved to. I miss having the built-in sync
| between devices that I had with Google Podcasts, but AntennaPod
| is otherwise great.
| algo_trader wrote:
| Did you export your subscription or queue from GP? They
| promised this in Dec23.
|
| I was a late comer to podcasts, and i just liked the clean GP
| design.
| technick wrote:
| I'm breaking up with google next year. Can't wait to be free of
| their crap.
| ppetty wrote:
| Next year, why then? Genuinely curious what keeps you hanging
| on. Seems like Google's apps and services rise and fall like
| the tides, so why not now.
| someotherperson wrote:
| I've degoogled quite well, the only real google services I
| continue to voluntarily use are YouTube and Maps. Although I
| don't use YouTube itself, I mostly interact with it through
| third party apps (i.e SmartTube or Invidious) and with
| Maps... well... nothing comes close. I wish there was a
| decent competitor to Google Maps but there isn't. I tried
| using Apple Maps but it lacks all of the crowdsourced
| information that Google has access to.
| ViktorRay wrote:
| I wish someone would ask Sundar Pichai in an interview or
| something if he is aware of the damage that these constant
| shutdowns do to his company's reputation.
|
| Not because I am interested in interrogating him. But because I'm
| honestly curious about his thinking process. Does he know and not
| care? Does he not know? Either way the answer would be
| interesting to me.
| xnx wrote:
| Spotify does music and podcasts in one app. Why should Google
| have two different apps for music and podcasts?
| elondaits wrote:
| Because discovery, consumption, and metadata are completely
| different for both mediums. Part of the reason Apple has a
| separate app for classical music.
| teg4n_ wrote:
| because a lot of people hate how spotify has the same app for
| music and podcasts
| happytoexplain wrote:
| You can do both in one, but it's difficult to get right
| (which is usually true of combining things into one product).
| E.g. when I tried it in Spotify, I couldn't find a way to
| return to where I was in my podcast after listening to music.
| Every single time I wanted to listen to my podcast after
| listening to any music, I had to manually scroll through
| hundreds of episodes until I saw the green checkmarks appear,
| then scroll back up slowly to find the last one I was
| listening to. Even if there is a feature for this, I couldn't
| find it on Android, which is its own UX problem.
|
| More importantly, YouTube music simply doesn't have a lot of
| podcasts. I started transferring my stuff over, and
| immediately found it was missing multiple podcasts I was
| listening to. Kind of a huge deal breaker.
| gainda wrote:
| i like spotify for music & music discovery but trying to
| manage and track podcasts felt too disorganized. i like
| pocket casts instead.
| emddudley wrote:
| I could be OK with that, except that YouTube Music is an
| awful podcast player. It doesn't have a way to queue up
| episodes. Also listening to podcasts severely degrades the
| music experience, the interface intermixes the music and
| podcasts too much.
| exolymph wrote:
| > Spotify does music and podcasts in one app.
|
| and it's super fucking annoying. my kingdom for the ability
| to tell Spotify I WILL NEVER LISTEN TO A PODCAST
| ianschmitz wrote:
| And now offers learning courses!
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Spotify doesn't do either well. It's getting to the point
| where I'm considering dropping my family Spotify plan.
|
| By contrast, Apple Music just works.
| codegrappler wrote:
| What does Apple Music do better than Spotify in the music
| space?
| twright wrote:
| I think you would get an answer that implies not caring. Pichai
| is a former Wharton and McKinsey guy, his job description is
| "provide value to shareholders" and cutting products and
| headcount does just that. I share your frustration, I hope we
| one day find a way to move past this brand of business
| management.
| pie420 wrote:
| This is purely to minimize monopoly accusations. Unless the
| product is making google billions in profit, it's not worth the
| risk to google. Podcasts is maybe hundreds of millions of
| dollars a year, but if regulators found evidence of google
| using Search or Android to give Podcasts an unfair advantage,
| it could give them the ammo to split Google up. Microsoft was
| almost sliced up due to Internet Explorer, not very different.
| lxgr wrote:
| If it even were just a clean shutdown!
|
| The newest Google trend is to move features around between apps
| and (presumably) across the org chart.
|
| Looking at Google Pay/Android Wallet/Android Pay/Pay/Google Pay
| (old), Duo/Google Meet (old)/Google Meet/Google Meet (part of
| Gmail) and others.
| gagaJo wrote:
| Obviously he's aware; it would be too hard for it not to come
| up given how often it's posted on social media. The mistake you
| make is belief Google is in the same business as our little web
| apps; making money to live.
|
| No. Google's goal is preserve and grow the wealth and power its
| investors have over society. That means bleeding edge not
| bothering with 20 year old pop culture obsessions.
| okdood64 wrote:
| The date was announced in December already.
|
| Is there some new information here, or are we simply re-
| litigating Google for this decision because hating them is the
| thing to do now?
| alphabetting wrote:
| I already had Youtube Music and their podcast integration seems
| better than Google Podcasts but this probably is a pain if you
| don't have youtube music or can't easily export followed
| podcasts.
| lxgr wrote:
| Ah yes, Youtube Music, the logical home for, hm, audio-only
| spoken word content.
|
| I think I'll just read, erm, sorry, Play Books instead. (But not
| music, because that's on Youtube now as well.)
| achrono wrote:
| Until they shut down Play Books while educating us that
| customers actually prefer summaries via Gemini instead of using
| Play Books, so actually now book purchases are being migrated
| to Gemini because that is such a better customer experience. It
| can even contextually recommend further reading... why would
| you not want that?
| hackerbeat wrote:
| Google is so lost.
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