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Comment by whalesalad | Hacker News Reader

The comments here are insane. Why do HN readers have this defeatest attitude about absolutely everything?

One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???

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I think this is because it can't be listend to anywere but spotify. The excusivity is what I see many people are taking issue with

Because podcasts up till now have been one of the last remaining media types that are not owned and produced by some gigantic tech corporation, and are instead truly independent media. The fear is that podcasts will go the route of blogging, which many lament, because now we are at the whims of Twitter and medium for distribution. For at least 2-3 years, several companies have been trying to "own" the podcast medium, and it's looking more and more like Spotify may came out ahead.

I personally don't care for this podcast, but imagine if a popular website (say HN) were to sign a deal to be available exclusively through a walled garden (say Facebook). The open internet loses overall.

> One prominent podcaster takes his show to one of the most popular music streaming services on the planet and the reaction is really "this is the end of podcasting as we know it" ???

It's already been trending that way, it's not like this is the first sign of it. It is an indication that the process of closing up what had been an open ecosystem, which was already underway, is about to accelerate, and yet another open protocol is about to start to wither in favor not of a better open protocol, but closed platforms full of spyware.

He's more than prominent. He's first or second in most podcast lists I see. I don't listen, but it does seem like a precedent I don't want to see.

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