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Comment by peterjlee | Hacker News Reader

I've been frustrated with many free podcast apps so I paid for Pocket Casts and I've been happy since. I think it's a smart move by NPR et al. What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc. These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server.

NPR has the NPR One app but I guess not enough people are using it. They've been open about what data they're collecting and I honestly don't mind NPR knowing about my podcast listening habits.

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> What they want is the usage data like where they pause, where they skip, etc.

That's exactly what I don't want

> These data were traditionally not available to podcast publishers because podcast is really just an mp3 file uploaded to some server.

Good. Long may it remain so.

I don't want them to have individual data, but I'm fine with them having anonymized statistics. Knowing what people are doing with things you make is such a valuable tool for making it better.

People with these statistics will be making things better for themselves and for advertisers. This may often coincide with making things better for users, but the type of data you're talking about is mostly useful for making it harder to skip ads.

I like my free, RSS-shared MP3 files as much as the next listener, but these things aren't free to produce, just like PocketCasts isn't free to make. Podcasters sell ads, and advertisers rightly want something in return. If ads are easy to skip, they have no assurance that they're getting anything for their money, so the money dries up, and the podcast goes under. There is always going to be a game of back and forth between ads and avoiding them, and this is just the next move, if it even happens.

I prefer the direction it's going in now where most podcasts I listen to have an option to subscribe to pay the podcaster more directly. This does not require turning my player into spyware yet it keeps the podcasts going.

I agree in theory but what else can be made better about podcasts? Is it worth the trade off for everyone's data? These are questions I believe were asked and answered with NPR One. Also, anonymized data is still data and that derived information can be very powerful.

The only caveat to this is their insight into advertisements. Lets say a podcast runs ads during its first 5 minutes, they can now tell exactly how many people are listening or skipping those ads and may be incentivized to start putting ads in the middle of podcasts, or implement some sort of non skip-able interruption.

Exactly my thoughts. I'm currently using a different podcast app that has a neat "fast forward 30 seconds" feature that I only ever use to skip ads.

It's annoying enough having to get my phone out of my pocked to press the fast forward button. If the ads were unskippable, I'd switch apps immediately.

Or they can make the ads less annoying. For the most part NPR podcasts are pretty good for having "not worth skipping" ads that are a few seconds long.

I also love Pocket Casts, particularly with the "skip pauses" feature. Often podcasts are full of short pauses... to date, I have saved 9 hours of time with the feature enabled!

I’ve saved 18 hours, and over 2 days by playing at 1.5x speed! Whoa. I listen to podcasts more than I thought!

I too am a podcast addict and listen at 2x-3x on most of my podcasts (the non fiction ones).

According to Pocket Casts, variable speed has saved me 281 days, 2 hours. Removing silence 3 days, 23 hours.

(@rustyshelf, if you're out there, how do I rank? :-) )

2.2x and silence skipping. I've saved 180 hours according to podcast addict on the silence skipping alone and probably another 400 on speed.

I'm at 42 days 5 hours total. I love love love Pocket Casts stats, and think they should be more prominent.

I've listened to 37 days, 9 hours total, and have saved 28 days 22 hours.

- 1 day 5 hours from skipping - 25 days 19 hours from variable speed - 1 day 12 hours from remove silence - 8 hours 28 minutes from skipping intros

I'm most surprised by hour much "remove silence" has saved me.

You should give AntennaPod a chance, very lightweight and allows for new podcasts to be added. It is open source and has is actively developed.

Additionally you won't have any new requirement to create a new account or pull analytics from your listening habits as you mentioned towards the end.

AntennaPod looks nice, but I do use the Web version of Pocket Casts a lot. It wouldn't be too hard to switch back to gPodder and Rhythmbox, but I love that state syncs between the Android app and web player. It will be hard to let Pocket Casts go (if it does become a spy).

Source for AntennaPod: https://github.com/AntennaPod/AntennaPod

I'd really love to use AntennaPod but they're missing the key smart playlist feature I love from BeyondPod. I don't even have to open the app most days and I can easily switch to a different set of podcasts when my wife is in the car. Does AntennaPod have anything similar that I'm missing?

I always wonder why they refuse to put their news onto a feed except through NPR One. I've just been going without...

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