Pocket Casts goes open source
ma.tt
ma.tt
They seem to have had a rough time of it over the last few years, and seeing them end up at Automattic ("land of the misfit web toys") was nice. This is a cherry on top.
I've always wanted more stats like this. I expected/hoped Google Play Music (and now the inferior YouTube Music) would provide amazing overviews of what you listen to. I wish I had stats on the music I listened to in WinAmp in the 90s and a way to see the change in my musical tastes (and the consistent threads through the years). I bet I could track relationships very easily by the playlists I listened to.
https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-android/issues/42...
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Since 14 October 2015 you've listened for:
*143 days 4 hours*
Skipping 6 days 17 hours
Variable Speed 17 days 10 hours
Trim Silence 7 days 10 hours
Auto Skipping 12 hours 17 mins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SponsorBlock
> The extension relies on a user-submitted database to identify sponsorships in videos.
> Extension users can submit segments in videos and vote on segments others have submitted.
For a podcast app that's a feature, not a bug.
Plenty of good and useful features have been added to podcast apps since the first one shipped.
Reading about how they were sold in 2018 to NPR explains A LOT of why it hasn't changed much in the last 4 years.
Taking notes makes sense to me for podcasts. Syncing with https://Readwise.io makes sense to me too.
I think most people listen to podcasts for fun and entertainment so it's unlikely they'll want to clip, get transcripts etc. But the small number of podcasts doing deep dives on scholarly, technical or professional matters? It's potentially quite useful to be able to get transcripts/excerpts with highlights and audio clips to add to personal notes for future reference.
Pocket Cast user 2013-2018
Castro user 2018-2022. I switched to them after an awful PC rewrite.
Snipd looks interesting. May be my 2022-2026 daily driver.
There’s “move fast and break things” and then at the entire other part of the spectrum is the Castro team.
I want personalized episode recommendations based on past listening behavior; I don't have time to dig through 30 podcast feeds to find an episode that interests me, which is why I usually only listen to specific episodes that friends recommend.
I bet recommendations across all podcasts (not just ones I know of) that match my interests to others with the same listening behavior would massively increase the amount of time I spend listening to podcasts.
I too pay for Spotify and I tried to get into some podcasts, starting with Darknet Diaries, but the ad and sponsor segments are just too jarring. I guess I'm not paying enough in my Spotify subscription to get it without that stuff, so who/what/where do I pay to get some podcasts I want to listen to without it?
Podcasts are still, and I hope stay that way what the web should be
Most podcasts offer some kind of Paid / Subscription that is Ad Free, but you have a subscribe to them Individually, not through a platform like Spotify, then you need a Add like Pocket Casts where you can add the Subscriber Feed instead of the public feed.
I do not want Podcasts to become an other Platform Pay Walled thing that Spotify, Apple, and other want to make it, Keep Podcasts Independent and Platform Agnostic
Out of the podcasts I listen to, I'm not sure a single one uses Spotify for subscriptions. Commonly it seems to be Patreon.
With all of that being said, many quality podcasts have jarring ad segments on purpose. Partly it serves as an ad for the ad-free feed but they also serve as a way to inform the listener that the following words aren't the podcasters' own and they were paid for an endorsement.
Agreed. One of the reasons I stopped listening to Leo Laporte was how subtly he would slide into the ads.
With Spotify, it's sort of similar to when the paid YouTube (Red/Premium) became a thing. Yea, you'd get rid of the Google-picked ads, but the in-video sponsored ads added by the video creator would still obviously remain.
The recommendation algorithm seems to work well, I’ve discovered a few of my favourite podcasts via the feature.
I have access to the web app and it syncs the podcasts as well as the play position.
Are you referring to something else?
It's obviously untrue. For many services the marginal cost of supporting a paid user on an ongoing basis approaches zero.
I'd imagine this is one. They presumably store some subscription and profile data and that's about it.
What if the app falls out of favor and new marginal revenue can’t cover fixed costs?
What if the business wants to innovate in a way that dramatically changes its cost structure (maybe introduce a feature that requires a usage based license)? Sure you can gate older users but how long do you have to maintain a separate set of features for them?
Obviously it’s the apps responsibility to make a fair deal with users and stick to terms offered. Sure some companies can make a model that amortizes an upfront payment effectively over decades. In reality though, all that really matters to a company is new cash that pays expenses. If you’re not contributing to that at some point you are no longer the customer.
Source: https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2019/09/18/major-new-update/
That said, I distributed remember themes and icons being a thing in the paid app which isn't available under the new model unless you subscribe.
iirc we were only grandfathered in for 3 years.
I'm still on my lifetime plan, maybe open a support ticket?
I bought the full featured version and was soo happy... Until they killed it off. Now I'm on an iPhone and Apple Watch and it's ridiculous to pay to subscribe just to be able to control it from my watch. Feels ridiculous.
If they brought back even an expensive, $80 one-time purchase fee I'd be more than happy to support.
Part of their marketing was “No subscription fees” and the premium was marketed as “lifetime”.
It was a pretty big bait-and-switch and the r/PocketCasts is a good example of bad customer relations.
The better analogy would be like me expecting NordicTrack to service my exercise equipment for free forever. They aren’t going to take my physical equipment away. But they also aren’t going to keep sending me replacement parts and service techs out anytime I call them unless I keep paying the annual warranty.
And before anyone replies that it must be shoddy equipment to keep needing repairs, heavily used exercise equipment constantly has moving parts that wear down.
Don't sell products then change them afterwards. I paid for a thing. Then they made it so that the thing I purchased required more payment indefinitely. That's bullshit.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/truth-advertising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_advertising#United_State...
I still use the app, but like you said, it does still irk me to this day.
> I hope that Pocket Casts can do for podcast clients what Firefox in the early days and Chromium now does for browsers — push the state of the art, be manically focused on user control, and grow a more decentralized and open web.
It's pretty funny to see the claim that Chromium is "manically focused on user control" and "is growing a more decentralised and open web" :-)
Why?
Why go so far as to distract from his news? Why not mention how being OSS should ideally mean improvements in sec and privacy?
It just seems weird.
This is opensource working as intended - someone else can build it with feature set you want.
I was citing extensions and Manifest v3 as an example of that, I don't care about the feature and what people can do to go around this.
Is it just a popularity contest or are those other apps better?
Podcast App (4.8, 228k votes)
Google Podcasts (4.7, 10k votes)
Overcast (4.7, 33k votes)
Podcast Player - Castbox (4.8, 98k votes)
Pocket Casts (3.9, 2.8k votes)
Stitcher (4.8, 4.7k votes)
Discounting the apple podcast app (4.9, 973k votes) since it's built in and therefore has an unfair advantage.
Might explain why it was sold if it was clear it wasn't winning. I certainly like the idea of a player that doesn't report to someone my interests.
The main two being:
- The 7.0 UI update in which certain features such as playlists were removed & the UX streamlined.
- The move from a paid app to free with subscription.
It’s an excellent app for the most part, certainly on par with others in that list.
An open-source app will have... passionate users. Great way to shoot ourselves in the foot here.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20873611/pocket-casts-plu...
I'm with you that allowing the clients to connect to a different sync server (gpodder, etc) would be a great feature. Though, again, I don't see that happening because it would cut into their subscription service.
Though I suppose if there is enough benefit to the free product (I'm not that familiar with it) - and confidence it will remain free - that might be a draw.
Perhaps there is also potential for it to be forked for a genuinely open service - I'm just a bit sceptical about "open source" that doesn't keep the implied convention to be fully independent, but perhaps that's unfair or unrealistic here.
To my knowledge, Antennapod does not have this. I've been using it for over a year now.
I remember the new podcast discovery being better, but otherwise have been very happy with Antennapod since.
Now I can finally see about making a PR to show buffering status
The global search is just so bad. I’ve told them multiple times about it. I’d try to contribute a fix if that was possible.
I wish he would have expanded on this, or at least link to something that did. It would be interesting to understand what a transition like that entails, what they did, why, etc.
I would have preferred this over the backhand swipe at Mozilla.
I will try it again, because Google Podcasts makes a "pop" sound notification every time it begins to download new episodes and it can't be turned off in the settings. It's very annoying.
I really hope folks don't entirely move to Spotify and their proprietary app and protocols.
I can’t remember the last time I had to paste in a podcast url anywhere. I just search for a podcast in-app and click “Subscribe”.
I have been using the app for years. First on android now on ios.
https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-android/issues/46...