[…] being able to say, “wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that’s supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that’s not owned by any one company, that can’t be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.
What podcasting holds in the promise of its open format is the proof that an open web can still thrive and be relevant, that it can inspire new systems that are similarly open to take root and grow.
If those Joe Rogan fans could read, they would be very upset right now!
EDIT: Oh you know what? I just fact-checked myself and apparently that podcast is no longer Spotify-exclusive as of very recently. I hope you enjoyed the joke anyway.
Many creators are moving away from exclusivity agreements. I think that’s great.
Everything is better when it ends with a fact check.
Even sex?
Especially sex
“Did that just happen?”
For these guys? Yes! Probably about HIV or something.
When people push listening on Spotify even though the podcast is available everywhere else I roll my eyes.
I literally stopped listening to Rogan when he moved to Spotify even though I already had an account and used it, because their app was such garbage at the time.
It’s slightly less garbage now.
I don’t understand their podcasts. It isn’t sectioned off or organised in any kind of way.
I tried it out and still regret it, because even after unsubscribing from all of the podcasts I still get notified of new episodes all the time.
Honestly the whole app is shit. 90% of the time what I want is to just continue listening to what I was earlier. But every time I open the app it’s just myriad of shit I don’t care about and I have to dive through 7 menus to find what I want.
As a Spotify user for most of its history, I think there are some UI and UX issues to resolve, but I literally have never had the experience you describe here.
I dunno what to say. These days 2 different people can have 2 completely different experiences using the same service because they’re “tailored” to the user, and usually the users has absolutely no control over it. So maybe that’s why.
I tried to use it as a podcast platform for about a week and to this day, several years later, even after I told it I’m not interested several times, it still clogs my homepage up with this bullshit.
Add to that “picked for you” and “your top mixes” etc.etc. and the stuff I actually want to listen to is nowhere to be found.
Every modern “app” and service is this way in 2024 and it’s absolutely infuriating. They all want to cram shit down your throat instead of letting you choose what you want.
I feel ya. I’m not sure why you’re having that much trouble and I’m not. I tried a couple podcasts, hated it, and stopped seeing recommendations pretty quickly. I get what you mean about so many recommendations though, it’s kind of annoying sometimes.
Could someone explain to me (I’m a developer so use whatever terms you like, maybe), how does the massive amount of podcasts reach the world? Say if I wanted to make a podcast app (I don’t, I love Pocket Casts), where would I sync the massive list’o’casts? Does it work like that? Or do you scrape the entire internet? What is happening?
iTunes api, and if apple turns evil there are other list-o-cast apis like fyyd.de.
if apple turns evil
Lolol yeah like that could EVER happen! /s
Compared to Reddit or Twitter anyway, they haven’t killed their API yet so apps like pocket casts are mainly using iTunes for search
Are you sure about this? I was under the impression there were several aggregators out there who all sort of shared data, iTunes just being one of them. Maybe you are totally right, but if you are that sort of undermines the original post, which is saying that the podcast ecosystem doesn’t depend on any one company/org.
…exactly the kind of technology that’s supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that’s not owned by any one company, that can’t be controlled by any one company…
Who is suggesting that such technology is impossible? The internet is literally exactly this, based on an open standard (Internet Protocol) which is not controlled by any proprietary group.
IP wasn’t the first computer networking standard to be developed, but its open nature made it accessible to any interested manufacturers and that made it the most successful standard.
Anyone suggesting that this “kind of technology” is “supposed to be impossible” is either ignorant or stupid, or both.
Who is suggesting that such technology is impossible?
Every business that could stand to make a buck from it being that way. But the author obviously meant in the current economic model we live under.
the current economic model we live under.
The internet isn’t exactly ancient technology. Do you think the ‘current economic model’ is significantly different from the 1970s? (and can you back up that conclusion?)
I don’t follow what you’re saying. The economic model we’re in has been around for hundreds, arguably thousands of years in most ways. What about it?
The author was assuming people would know that “impossible” doesn’t always need to be literal. Things are more often impossible because of established norms. That’s all.
The norms we are discussing here is that under capitalism, the norm tends to be trending away from free and open systems. Because where there is a buck to be made, there’s usually someone doing everything they can to make that buck and prevent the openness that would render them useless.
The economic model we’re in has been around for hundreds, arguably thousands of years in most ways. What about it?
And open source came into being inside of that model, and has grown and thrived since. So obviously, it’s not impossible.
The norms we are discussing here is that under capitalism, the norm tends to be trending away from free and open systems.
Right, this isn’t true. While certainly there are some businesses that try to restrict it, open systems grow and spread anyway. Open source is bigger and stronger than ever today. Open source software is so widespread that it’s a security concern for governments (look at the log4j fiasco). You interact with open platforms every day, even if you don’t see their names in commercials or on billboards (many of them don’t have to advertise).
I think you’re just being argumentative honestly. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said really, I just take issue with the intentional reading of “possible” as “technically possible”.
Yeah OSS and a lot of open systems are huge and great. They will continue to grow. But as we both know, business will continue to be intentionally shitty. Exhibit A: world’s first trillion dollar company, Apple, thrives mostly due to the proprietary ecosystem they’ve put in place. It’s a “winning” strategy, as much as I loathe it.
We’re not disagreeing on anything but wording here.
OK, but I’m not arguing for the sake of argument. What I take issue with is the overly negative point of view that isn’t justified by the reality of the current technology market. It’s limited, depressive and ultimately self-destructive.
Perspective matters. Money isn’t the only measure of success. Internet infrastructure is basically Linux, nginx and Apache - seriously, apart from user endpoints it’s pretty much all open source - and the most common endpoint OS is Android so also open source. The idea that open systems aren’t as successful as proprietary ones doesn’t reflect reality, it’s a projection of a limited point of view onto reality (it only seems true if large portions of the current technology market are ignored).
I get where you are coming from now. Thanks for elaborating.
I can see where you’d get that it’s an overly negative point of view, but I’ll be damned if companies like Apple don’t give me so many reasons to think that way :(
