cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/66697
I’m going to ask a legitimate question and I promise I’m not trolling but this seems insane to me and I have to ask.
Why in the fuck would anybody use a special app just for podcasts?
I just go to the website, download the show, throw it on my phone and I’m good to go. It takes very little time I don’t have anyone selling my listening data.
I’d genuinely like to know what the benefit is.
For a legitimate question you sure do keep countering answers with “I don’t do it so why do you?”
As for why people use a dedicated app? Convenience. All my podcast are in one place, they get updated automatically, and if I want it they get downloaded to storage automatically too so I can listen to them offline.
If someone tells me about a new podcast I might like, I can search for it and be listening to it within seconds, rather than having to download it from a website. Plus if I’m using Google Podcasts, playback is synced across devices so I can pick up on my phone where I left off on my computer.
Besides there’s a ton of open source podcast apps and most don’t have ads or tracking.
Because if I don’t understand something, I would like an understanding of what the reasoning behind it is. We get smarter by asking people about the world. I find a lot of issues with people emerge because they don’t think about the reasoning behind any of what they are doing and simply fall into a rut of convenience instead of finding a better way to do things.
But of course on the internet, people get pretty angry when questioning a behavior they just adopted and never bothered to think about.
so you don’t have to go to the website and download each episode you want to listen to…
I don’t understand how going to a website once a week for under 10 seconds is a detriment?
If you listen to more than one podcast, either
- you visit once a week anyway, and just have podcasts delayed a few days from release to listen, or
- you visit every day that one of the podcasts is released, which means you may be visiting several websites every day.
Some podcasts I like to listen to the day they come out, or perhaps the next day if I don’t get to it, such as news podcasts.
Also, if you listen to even more than a few podcasts, you aren’t going to “a website” once a week, you’re going to a dozen websites once a week.
I just go to the website, download the show, throw it on my phone
That’s three steps, per podcast per episode. Not everyone has their phone set up where it’s zero-effort to copy files to the phone from their computer, so that may be a multi-step process itself.
Also, podcast apps offer some other features that to do manually either is more work, or more mental overhead:
- Favoriting episodes, so that they stay downloded: to do this manually you need some sort of filesystem hierarchy where you put favorited episodes, or keep a list of favorited episodes, or keep track some other way.
- Notifications for new episodes, for podcasts that don’t follow a strict release schedule, or those that put out “special” episodes off their typical release schedule, or even just not having to memorize which podcasts have what release schedules.
- Viewing of “show notes” inline instead of having to open the browser, navigate to the podcast’s webpage, then navigate to the episode page.
- Listening software designed for podcasts/human speech: silence trimming, speedup ratios, start/end trimming, smart chapter-based seeking and navigation, remembering where you left off. Some of these features may be available in whatever generic multimedia player you listen to podcasts in, but not all of them.
Of course, a podcast app is not required to listen to podcasts by any means. But if you listen to a lot of podcasts and value time your time, there is undeniable benefit offered by podcast apps.
Also, there are plenty of FOSS and tracker-free podcast apps, so it’s not a situation where you must sacrifice privacy for convenience.
I just subscribe to a bunch of podcasts and it automatically downloads them for me. It handles keeping track of what I’ve listened to and can queue up a variety of them for easy listening like a customized radio station.
Here’s what mine looks like:
I just grab them and then delete them when I’m done. I still don’t understand the need to involve a corporation and their analytics in my listening activities. There’s not much time lost or regained either way so I don’t really see the benefit?
They just made a new podcast called Android Faithful that has Ron and Huyen. It feels like AAA reborn.
It is just easier, and having a simple ui of different podcasts and their episodes along with their progress is a nice QOL -feature. You can probably get the sam, result with a media-player and some tinkering, but is not as easy.
Granted, I see no reason to pay for a podcast app (other to support creators), as free open-source options such as AntennaPod exist.
I use the free version. Though I wouldn’t pay for a aub, what do you get with it?
I’ve been paying the sub so I can pick up and play on my phone, tablet or PC whichever I happen to be using when I want to listen, but I’ll be dropping it if that is indeed the new price!
Holy shit that price is just insane. No one is going to be willing to pay that when Spotify is cheaper by a lot…
You don’t need to pay for the subscription to use PocketCasts for podcasts. There is a free version that does everything you would need it to.
Spotify is 10 a month for a normal subscription, so Pocket Casts is roughly a third of that for one year. I don’t like Spotify for podcasts at all but it is a big part of the service nowadays. Still awfully expensive for Pocket Casts when you consider that it is just for podcasts and no music - unlike Spotify.
Do people really use Spotify for podcasts? I don’t find it a great experience. Pocket Casts seems to be solid as a free app along with other alternatives (including open-source).
I’m pretty sure the only people who use Spotify for podcasts are unvaccinated Roganites
Just here to say fuck Dax Shepherd for being a Spotify exclusive podcaster.
It’s the only reason my family plan hasn’t been migrated, really. I don’t want to deal with that fall out.
I use Spotify for podcasts, though if the rumors of them increasing their sub is true, I’ll be swapping to open source alternative’s.
Look at AntennaPod. Pretty app like Pocket Casts but is completely free and open source.
Honestly it’s pretty reasonable. I lucked into buying a lifetime pass a looong time ago and I’ve gotten my moneys worth. I wouldn’t even mind paying a few bucks a month considering how useful it has been to me, and how much I use it.
BeyondPod on android
Beyond Pod hasn’t been updated since January 2021. It used to be the best podcast app by far, but is now quite buggy and broken on newer versions of Android.
AntennaPod is what I use now. A fantastic app that is free, no ads, and completely open source.
