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Comment by drewg123 | Hacker News Reader

The feature that I'm looking for in a podcast service (especially one that calls itself "Like Netflix") is ad-free content. I'd be happy to pay a monthly fee not to hear yet another ad for the same darned things over and over and over again on my favorite podcasts.

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"I want to talk to you all about squarespace, I was updating my squarespace on my Bolden Branch sheets on my Casper mattress waiting for my delivery from BlueApron.com listening to my audiobook from Audible.com about to take a sh*t on my Squatty Potty" [0]

But yeah, I really hate hearing about Squarespace, Simple Contacts, RX Bar, Mac Weldon, Hello Fresh/Blue Apron, Butcherbox, Betterment, Privacy, Rocket Mortgage, and the whole lot.

[0] https://youtu.be/O1TiSy1ZWsE?t=7m26s

Agreed. I'm thoroughly conditioned not to tolerate commercials any more and when one comes on, I turn off the source. This is why I don't listen to podcasts any more. If Netflix had commercials, I'd drop my subscription yesterday.

It's not too difficult to hit the "Skip forward 15 seconds" button a few times.

It’s even easier now that the iOS podcast app lets you choose a skip duration for the forward and backward buttons— I’ve got mine set to skip 45 seconds forward and 15 back.

Yes, Overcast, at least, lets you configure your prev/next buttons and I have mine set to 15 seconds. I know based on the podcast about how many times I need to mash the next button when I hear "We are sponsored this week by...."

Its not too hard, but it is still something that I'd pay to avoid. I spend an hour or so rowing in the mornings, and hitting the skip-forward on my headphones takes me out of my rhythm.

There is Stitcher Premium[0] that does exactly this.

[0]: https://www.stitcher.com/premium

They have a caveat "Some shows record their own ads which Stitcher cannot remove". It would be nice if they marked which shows were actually ad-free. It would be even nicer if they put auto-skip markers over the "unremovable" ads. We've had that technology for TV for more than a decade (comskip.exe, MythTVs comflag, etc).

You better learn Chinese then. Podcasts is $7 bln business there, not ad-driven.

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