Show HN: Adblock for Podcasts
github.com
This is a small app that achieves surprisingly good podcast adblocking. It transcribes the podcast, identifies ad segments in the transcript, then creates a new version of the podcast without the ads.
github.com
The other podcasts I listen to are current and mostly ad supported - this isn't great for them
Otherwise it’s fantastic.
(SB has different categories of skips. E.g. sponsor ads, self promotion/merch, like-sub-bell annoyances and so on. You choose what you skip.)
The moral case for ad blocking on the web seems pretty clear: online advertising is built on massive exploitation of user privacy, has horrible UX, and is often implemented so poorly that it tanks pageload performance. In short, I understand why people use ad blockers on the web.
Podcasts though? In RSS-based podcasting, which is what this tool targets, you're typically getting a reasonable quality audio ad, with limited tracking, targeted broadly at the category of people who might listen to a particular podcast; it's about as unobtrusive as advertising gets. Widespread circumvention of those ads could really hurt the ecosystem, which would be particularity frustrating given that podcasting appears to still be a viable space for small scale creators to do great things (e.g. San Charrington and the TWIML AI podcast)
TLDR cool demo but everyone should please think carefully about if or when to use this tool.
How about if I turn the volume down during ads, is that morally wrong?
Maybe I play ads at regular speed and volume, but I think about something other than the ads while they play, is that wrong?
Perhaps a truly ethical consumer would listen intently to every ad, rewinding every time their mind wanders, pausing the audio every few seconds to take copious notes.
> if I turn the volume down during ads, is that morally wrong?
30 years ago, was it morally wrong to go to the bathroom during an ad break? (IMO: no)
> I think about something other than the ads while they play, is that wrong?
30 years ago, was it wrong to chat with friends during a commercial break? (IMO: no)
That being said, _skipping_ the ads entirely doesn't seem (to me) equivalent to these examples.
I cannot explain why I feel this way. I _think_ I still believe in _unobtrusive_ advertising - 5 to 15 seconds of ads before a 10 minute video.
If the author of our favorite podcast can't get any product placement in, why will they continue producing the podcast? (Maybe in a utopia they would create the podcast because that's what they love to do - but maybe in a utopia they would prefer not to cast, and instead listen to someone else?)
Idk. Some thought vomit here that maybe HN folks can help me work through.
Creators will still get paid per download with this tool. If everyone does something like this (unlikely), worst case is conversion rates might be lower, which could cause advertising to become less financially viable, so content creators may have to explore other monetization options or add more advertising.
Removing ads from a podcast that offers a paid ad-free alternative feels wrong, but aside from that I don't see anything wrong with this. I'll always choose a paid version over ads.
Video/audio ads (especially TV commercial breaks) seem inherently obtrusive to me. They're hard to skip, and rarely contextual. I personally think listening to ads is generally harmful, there are better sources of information to be influenced by to make a decision.
An unobtrusive ad would imo be more like putting a link in the description, or a privacy-respecting banner on the website. I'm sure that wouldn't pay as well, though.
That said, "unethical" was clearly a poor choice of words, as that's quite a loaded term. However, this technology is designed to systematically circumvent the mechanism by which many podcast creators earn money for their effort, and even if "unethical" is the wrong word, we should still discuss whether putting these technologies out, and using them, is a good move - particularly if we care about rewarding creators and supporting the podcasting industry. (And there's an argument that goes even further, around whether doing something like this is systematically violating an implicit contract with creators, even if it's more of a moral contract than a legal one).
Note that a lot of people believe that it is not only a good move, but the actually ethical one. I fail to see how the ads would benefit the users directly, and I will go out of my way to not support advertising. So far I've installed tools like uBlock Origin and Sponsor Block for tens of friends/acquaintances now, and I firmly believe they are getting a better experience.
I think there's a preponderance of scientific evidence to show that there's probably some kind of effect on you as a member of homo sapiens, even if it's not necessarily conscious or not exactly as strong as advertisers claim it is to their clients.
For example, would you say you are immune to the Mere-exposure Effect [0]? Absent some particular gripe, you'll unconsciously give an edge in preferences to a brand you've heard about versus one you haven't.
I'm not getting a hellofresh subscription anyways even if I hear an ad for it.
If the vast majority of folks started skipping ads, and ads thus no longer had reasonable conversion rates, companies would stop investing in podcast ads and many podcasts would stop being produced.
I'm unsure how I feel about the 'zero chance to ever serve vast majority' argument. I use uBlock and Sponsor Block, but recognize that that has an impact at scale. I guess that argument kind of feels to me like "your single vote doesn't matter." For a few hundred or thousand folks, sure. But what if 500k people start using it?
Not so fast. Many podcasts are served by intermediaries. The same intermediary can then observe and collect an individual's listener preferences and create a more targeted profile.
The iOS podcast app Overcast shows you all the intermediary platforms a podcast goes through.
E.g. 99pi goes through Chartable, with Overcast flagging that it "may follow individual-listener behaviour across multiple shows or the web, often to track responses to ads.'
Also ad-networks as an unaccountable vector for malware.
That said, I agree that audio in a podcast doesn't have that same problem, outside of a Snow Crash scenario.
If your media contains parts that you needed to be convinced by money to insert I'll probably skip it entirely, for me it's a signal that the material is produced for other reasons than your interests and passion, and there are many other people that don't make such compromises. Some of them put a price on the material, some don't. I might be willing to make a deal with you, but I do not want to be pulled into your deals with third parties.
Personally I don't see an issue with that; but even if you do, I'll also note that the overwhelming majority of companies that rely on Podcast/influencer ads in general have utter shite quality products. It's one thing to get a traditional radio ad break telling you about the current supermarket sales, it's another to hear the fiftieth VPN ad who is totally about convincing you that they're just for watching Netflix overseas, the twentieth food delivery company, bad earbuds manufacturers or shite like razor delivery companies and cast iron BBQ grills. To put it quite simply; there's a reason these companies aren't pursuing more traditional avenues and it's probably because they'd get undesired scrutiny if they did.
There are of course outliers, but the amount of false advertising for shoddy products compared to actually desirable shit is so low that the bar is below the floor.
In Canada the CBC's tax-funded podcasts with ads also feel a little dubious.
It'd be cool if you could have an personal AI purchase and curate content for you.
Edit: thinking a bit more about it I guess that's pretty much what YouTube premium is.
Even if this will become the new norm, and there are fewer advertisers and people would make less money from it, this change could be very positive for the podcast ecosystem. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and the majority are without ads or rarely include ads. They are products of passion, and not full of fake testimonials about scammy expensive multivitamins or really bad mental health services.
Imho, the web was a lot better before Google and social media ruined the discoverability of small personal websites and blogs with great content, and replaced it with (nowadays AI-generated) blogspam and clickbait that is highly profitable, but ultimately worthless.
We will not return to the good old times with the web. In fact I believe that the genie is not only out of the bottle, but we actually created an automated Pandora's-box-opener in the current state of AI, compete with endless unboxing videos. But maybe we can go one step back with podcasts. I believe it would be worth a try.
*or "tip" or whatever other monetization channel they have. Very few rely solely on ads.
Actual payment on clickthrough/conversion rate is pretty uncommon. The podcaster isn't harmed by anyone skipping the ads.
A lot of podcast authors offer ad-free versions as a paid feed to members, which to me, invalidates the ethically dubious “but the podcaster has already been paid” argument.
They should be given the choice to do this.
I feel like the slippery slope is immensely dangerous as it always is with these products.
And given that most publishers are small and just scraping by and this directly harms them, I think that sucks.
Stop free-riding on absolutely everyone like they're a Hollywood studio.
And I do have a desire to block ads in every single part of my life, I just don't practically go any further than regular uBlock origin in Firefox.
I'd actually rather pay for good podcasts than get intrusive ads.