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Comment by Maxburn | Hacker News Reader

Spotify is a horrible podcast player. The audio engine doesn't have nuanced speed control or remove silence like other dedicated podcast apps. I also find the podcast UI is terrible for managing shows and play list.

And then there's the bugs that don't get fixed for a long time. Last year they had one where every time a podcast was interrupted by a notification or something it would start over from the start.

Lastly spotify podcasts that are exclusive are not, by definition, a podcast because they don't have a valid rss feed. You might refer to them as shows but calling them podcasts ignores how podcasts are supposed to work in an open interoperable system.

And of course there's zero chance they will embrace podcast 2.0 features; https://podnews.net/podcast/i4ji5 https://podcastindex.org/podcast/value4value

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> are not, by definition, a podcast because they don't have a valid rss feed

Does a podcast need to have a rss feed? All I see in definitions is that its an audio format made available over the internet.

> And of course there's zero chance they will embrace podcast 2.0 features

What is Podcasting 2.0? All I see is a bunch of people doing podcasting differently, namely adding ads and crypto.

Yes it needs an RSS feed. Otherwise it's just an mp3 file.

So a podcast with an ATOM feed isn't a podcast? It needs a feed, sure, but not necessarily RSS.

That depends on the service or app. Some accept both, and some only take RSS. Apple Podcasts used to accept Atom feeds, but they don't anymore for new podcasts. All the feeds

Edit: do you know any podcasts that use an atom feed? None of the 80 feeds in my podcast app are atom feeds.

The underlying protocol is an implementation detail.

I don't know any atom feed podcasts (and can't find any), but I can find references to people using (or trying to use) atom for podcasts.

I've been casual into podcasting and listening to the developers create Podcasting 2.0 and I haven't heard anyone talking about atom feeds. I think podcasting has firmly settled on rss.

> The underlying protocol is an implementation detail.

So you are saying you could do HTML without TCP/IP? Would that work you think?

> Does a podcast need to have a rss feed?

Canonically, yes. RSS is how podcasts are distributed, and why any podcast app can play any podcast.

However, Spotify marketing has bastardized words like "podcast" and "podcasting" by using them to refer to their closed, proprietary platform. That strategy is working brilliantly, and so the future of podcasting is probably proprietary platforms on one side, and bullshit "2.0"/Web3 stuff on the other.

I see the future of podcasting with a much brighter future than proprietary. Talk to the developers behind Podcasting 2.0 and see if they can change your mind; https://podcastindex.social/about

It's pretty much embrace, extend ..

They're benefiting from the open ecosystem whilst simultaneously damaging it.

Agree with the first part, but how are they damaging it? Everything they are building is open far as I know.

Can I listen to paid shows in antennapod? Can I buy their podcasts from someone else the way I can get music or books from different stores?

If a vendor chooses to only sell on one platform, that's not the platforms fault (cancerous exclusives notwithstanding).

Podcasting 2.0 is mostly about removing ads, shifting to a direct streaming monetary support model via crypto. The bonus with this model is once advertisers are removed free speech is no longer a problem. Also a big focus on decentralization in order to prevent censorship.

> The bonus with this model is once advertisers are removed free speech is no longer a problem.

How is it a problem now? RSS feeds already can't be taken down by angry third-parties, and offer perfectly usable decentralization. Advertising is entirely an at-will process for podcast hosts, so they can choose whether or not they want to shackle themselves to a third-party that might object to the content they spread. Connecting your podcast to a crypto wallet doesn't fix that, and it's nothing you couldn't do with preexisting XML syntax.

Even if Spotify adopted Podcasting 2.0, why would users care? Even as a technical guy, I want nothing to do with a crypto-adjacent monetization model. Podcasting 1.0 already solved these problems years ago, there's a good reason the major podcast players are wary of this "upgrade".

If you accept money from an advertiser and say something they don't like they can threaten to pull funding. Sort of like how none of the us "news" media will say anything against pharma, sponsored by phizer!

Direct support of shows by listeners is a much more honest relationship and liberating for podcasters but there is nothing in PC2.0 saying you have to use these features, it is simply enabling an alternate funding model. If you don't get the value for value principal in the first place it's not going to make sense though.

How is direct support limited in a traditional podcasting model, though? Nobody is forced to accept advertisements for their podcast. If you do, that comes with a risk that someone will stop paying you. With traditional podcasts you can still embed Paypal accounts/Bitcoin wallets if that's what you want.

I just fail to see how Podcasting 2.0 is a significant change over Podcasting 1.0. Everything you've listed already exists in RSS.

Paypal deplatforms people. They also don't have a way to stream revenue as you play.

I'm not a great ambassador for it but they are building the infrastructure to accomplish the streaming payments, boosts, cross platform chat, podping to get immediate notifications and reduce wasted polling, and a whole bunch of standardized metadata.

By the way the streaming payments also have value splits to support the show hosts, app used to play it, hosting platform, a guest that happens to be on that episode, etc, etc. Whatever they want. It's really impressive and no way can paypal match this.

> Paypal deplatforms people. They also don't have a way to stream revenue as you play.

Then don't use them. PayPal is not intrinsically linked to Podcast 1.0, it's just an example of how you can use any payment (including crypto) without upgrading to Podcasting 2.0 or whatever. Adding YouTube style feature is something, but personally seems like a lot of hubbub for little payoff.

None of this strikes me as an upgrade over RSS, even still. XML trumps the Blockchain for this sorta stuff.

I'm not sure there is anything in podcasting 2.0 about removing ads. I don't think the distribution protocol can do anything about ads that are baked into the mp3s on the hosting side.

You are correct, not forcing this on anyone. They are offering a solid alternative to ads with the streaming sats model. It's more in line with the principal of value for value.

Spotify isn’t even a good music player…

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