Pocket Casts acquired by NPR, other public radio stations, This American Life

theverge.com

4 points·uptown··6 comments

This is huge news. One of the most popular / well-liked apps now owned by a major media player in the audio ecosystem.

I don't know if this is good or bad news, because I really like Pocket Casts...

This is definitely bad news. Big media is dying to know everything that they can about the listeners of podcasts. I can guarantee you that the first update to Pocket Casts will be a new privacy policy, where they go Big Data on the user.

Podcasts is obviously going the way of the web, with extreme spying on the users.

Really disappointed because Pocket Casts was a great cross platform app, working super on Android, iPhone and even iPad.

I'm switching to Overcast, where the developer cares about privacy.

I'm not really worried about privacy with regards to my podcast listening habits. If that's the price of a really fantastic service like Pocket Casts, then so be it.

But if the app starts to suck, to insert ads and features no one really wants, and starts to remove the features I use... We don't really have a good alternative on Android...

Of course they will insert personalized ads. There is no doubt in my mind that the end goal is pervasive monitoring combined with targeted advertising.

I've been playing around with Overcast lately and this news might just push me to make the jump. Privacy is a priority for them which is awesome. I'm not too worried about a company knowing my podcast habits, but it's more about supporting the principle and owners that care about things like privacy

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