• pwnicholson
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      219 months ago

      I wish this were more implausible, but at this point I’m getting worried.

    • newIdentity
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      39 months ago

      Youtube is basically their entertainment brand. So that really doesn’t make sense.

      • @Sstadler06@lemm.ee
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        19 months ago

        People are just resistant to change because the GPM to YTM transition sucked when they released a half baked app

        • newIdentity
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          19 months ago

          Yeah I guess so. YTM sucked ass when it came out. But now I would say it’s better than Spotify.

  • @Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    409 months ago

    Man, I really did like Google Podcasts.

    It was way better than the other podcast apps. And coming from iTunes, it was a smooth transition.

    This sucks. Open source your shit, Google, and I promise we’ll keep it going.

    • @miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
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      59 months ago

      Would be nice if more companies just open sourced the stuff they don’t need or don’t want to maintain anymore.

      Even if no one picks it up, at least it got another chance.

    • @iegod@lemm.ee
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      29 months ago

      What value would oss bring here when it’s the content that matters most? I’m actually really interested to know because I too really liked this app/service.

      • @candybrie@lemmy.world
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        99 months ago

        Podcasts are (generally, Spotify excluded) on an open standard. They’re just RSS feeds. So, the content can be aggregated by anyone. So it’s primarily the UI that will be different between different podcast players.

        • @iegod@lemm.ee
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          09 months ago

          Sure but the hosting of that content isn’t something a front end can solve.

          • @ahto@feddit.de
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            39 months ago

            Podcasts are already hosted by a variety of independent services. Google doesn’t host any podcasts, at least as far as I am aware. In this case it really is a frontend-only problem.

          • @candybrie@lemmy.world
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            29 months ago

            The RSS feed points to the already hosted files. A lot of people host podcasts on services like libsyn or podbean. I don’t think you can really host podcasts on Google; maybe hacked together on drive or something.

          • newIdentity
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            19 months ago

            Google isn’t hosting the podcasts.

            Most of them are hosted by a service offered by Spotify.

    • Chozo
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      69 months ago

      It’s likely not financially viable to have separate teams for their many products that all have similar features. Consolidating makes more sense because they can actually afford to maintain development.

      Honestly, they should just roll YouTube Music into the default YouTube app, as well. And they probably will at some point. It just doesn’t make sense to have these services - which are basically all the same, functionally-speaking - spread out across multiple apps.

      • @dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org
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        259 months ago

        Honestly, they should just roll YouTube Music into the default YouTube app, as well.

        I don’t think I could disagree more. I use both and listening to music and watching videos are entirely different activities for me and I want the apps to do different things in different ways.

      • @sim642@lemm.ee
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        79 months ago

        It’s likely not financially viable to have separate teams for their many products that all have similar features.

        Clearly Google doesn’t follow that logic because they have numerous competing chat apps. Even Google Maps has chat…

    • @paris
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      109 months ago

      About two weeks ago I thought about this in regards to google podcasts.

      “Well this one will probably stick around long enough that I’ll have moved on by the time google shuts it down. They don’t even host the episodes anyway. They source the metadata and audio files from elsewhere. All they really host is my listening history, queue, and subscriptions. Certainly this is less likely to get the axe anytime soon.”

      *two weeks later*

      It really does suck though. I genuinely like the google podcasts app/website. Best one I’ve found so far that works how I like my apps/services to work.

      • @tehmics@lemmy.world
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        19 months ago

        Man I recently switched from podcast addict after years because podcast addict put an annoying nag about permissions changes in Android, plus I always had issues with the playlist/queuing. Guess I’ll go back to it soon

  • Bebo
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    369 months ago

    Never surprising to hear of yet another Google service shutting down.

  • @AdamantRatPuncher@lemmy.world
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    329 months ago

    They pushed so hard for youtube music, which is nowhere near as good as play music was (had a subscription there…amazing little app, if you even remember that), that I forgot completely about Google podcasts. Spotify really marketed its podcast feature too well so I used that instead.

      • @Salamendacious@lemmy.world
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        59 months ago

        Honestly I think YouTube music is finally at parity with Google music. I’d prefer some of the fluff to go away (e.g. the comments, samples, & podcasts) but overall it’s gotten much better.

      • @AdamantRatPuncher@lemmy.world
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        49 months ago

        I can’t argue with that, it was just useful to migrate my data across multiple devices. I badly miss the ui if play music, and I mean it.

      • @Cringe2793@lemmy.world
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        49 months ago

        You must not know many Android users then. Almost all the android users I know (like 90% of them) use spotify. And I think all the apple users I know use it.

      • LUHG
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        29 months ago

        Yeh it’s dogshit but so is apple music.

        • @accideath@lemmy.world
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          19 months ago

          The desktop apps suck but on mobile it’s the best music streaming service there is, imo. It has a few features I‘d like it to add but other services don’t have some key features that are much more important to me

      • Dym Sohin
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        49 months ago

        i bet they discontinue youtube-music in 2026 by selling it to sony

    • @okamiueru@lemmy.world
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      49 months ago

      Does anyone know why they shut it down? The replacement was worse on every single account. And by such a significant amount too.

      • @Sstadler06@lemm.ee
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        39 months ago

        2 reasons, but the main one is that they had to get separate individual licenses for songs or something and that was likely minimally cutting into their absolutely insane profits, but with YouTube music it’s still just YouTube so only one is needed… idk that’s what I read on Reddit a couple years ago. The other is that their workplace culture is completely fucked and they push new apps instead of updating the old ones.

        I’m not saying they should be like apple but sometimes seeing the killed by google list grow is frustrating when you look back and were an active user of a bunch of the things

        • @Stumblinbear@pawb.social
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          9 months ago

          I think you underestimate how expensive licensing music is. As an example, the vast majority of Spotify’s revenue goes to paying licensing fees and is most of the reason they’re wildly unprofitable

  • Carighan Maconar
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    269 months ago

    It’s so wild that Google would rather weaken their own brand than just keep a secondary frontend around. It would require minimal maintenance cost (given the size of their company, just have 1-2 fulltime devs working on keeping it in shape and updated), and it could access the exact same backend as the Youtube Music app.

    Weird.

    And don’t misunderstand me, I really don’t like Google Podcasts for podcasts, but I also admit that having a separate app for podcasts is superior, as you listen to them very differently than you listen to music. Spotify amiably shows how their recommendation algorithms absolutely cannot handle someone listening to both, anyways.

    • @mtcerio@lemmy.world
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      159 months ago

      They probably want to monetize on podcasts too, in the same way they do on videos and music. At the moment, Google Podcast is completely free and ad-free.

    • newIdentity
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      39 months ago

      I actually don’t think it’s a bad decision. I think merging it with YouTube is a good thing. They could integrate tightly with YouTube since they already added a “podcast” feature and you could seemlessly switch between Video and Audio.

      Sooner or later I expected that to happen.

      • Carighan Maconar
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        89 months ago

        But to a user, what would the benefit be? Would the UI also change depending on content played to expose the controls specialized for each type of media?

        • newIdentity
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          19 months ago

          You could listen to an epsiode on YouTube then pause and listen to it on YouTube music.

          Would the UI also change depending on content played to expose the controls specialized for each type of media?

          They already kinda do that on YouTube (with YouTube premium). When you watch a music video, you have music controls in the normal YouTube app and a button to switch to YouTube music

          Tbh, they should rather make a new app called "YouTube Podcasts)

  • dr_rugby
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    249 months ago

    That’s just the Google way… still didn’t get over the RSS reader disaster… Anyways, I tried the app a couple of times: it’s not a great app for listening to podcasts. If you like podcasts, try Antennapod, Pocket Casts or Podcast Addict (and please stay away from Spotify).

    In the end: good riddance.

      • @deadlyduplicate@lemmy.world
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        49 months ago

        One use for RSS feeds is to distribute podcasts to multiple apps. I believe most podcasts apps are just RSS readers combined with an audio player.

      • molave
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        19 months ago

        I use RSS to help decide if an item is worth reading or not based on the title

      • dr_rugby
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        29 months ago

        Because Spotify uses (not their own) podcasts to generate revenue, but doesn’t pay the creators.

        • newIdentity
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          9 months ago

          Every podcast does that.

          Also they host many podcasts and have their own advertising service which can insert ads dynamic ads into the podcast from which the Podcaster is profiting too

          • dr_rugby
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            29 months ago

            You might actually hear a podcast host say that if you listen to enough podcasts. I have heard it in the Bits und so podcast, directly from the host.

            Also, Spotify bought their own studio (Gimlet), for that they are obviously paying the creators.

          • dr_rugby
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            19 months ago

            Also, there is this wonderful specialty toy, I think it is called Google. You can search for things and find answers to urgent questions, all by yourself.

              • dr_rugby
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                19 months ago

                It pays the creator if the creator offers pay to view content. So technically, it takes money from the creator’s subscribers.

  • @DNAblue2112@lemmy.world
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    189 months ago

    Spent a solid hour trying apps to switch to. Found podcast republic which does everything I want with tons of customisation and a one time payment to ditch the ads. Love it.

    • Phi
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      49 months ago

      Been using Podcast Republic forever now. (~7 years)

      The developer did so much during the time. It allows you to do so much.

    • @Salamendacious@lemmy.world
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      49 months ago

      I’ve been using PocketCasts for years but I’ve been thinking about jumping ship. I’m going to give republic a shot. Thanks

    • @tehmics@lemmy.world
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      19 months ago

      Might try it, does it have skip silence, per cast playback speeds and configurable start and ending skips?

        • @tehmics@lemmy.world
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          19 months ago

          Thanks for checking that man you’re the best. I’ll definitely get some podcasts transferred over and try it out after work tonight

  • Dr. Dabbles
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    189 months ago

    Such a bad idea. Podcasts seek forward and interface actually worked. Zero chance the migration to YouTube is smooth.

      • Dr. Dabbles
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        19 months ago

        I use YTM exclusively for music streaming. The interface has been getting worse over time, but the podcasts integration is pure dogshit and they should be embarrassed. Basically it’s a subscription to a youtube channel in the back-end and they might add RSS support some day in the far future. Their only focus now is on allowing creators to add an RSS feed for ingestion, not for users to do the same.

        This is a moronic idea, and Google is ruining one of their only good app experiences.

          • Dr. Dabbles
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            19 months ago

            Navigating any playlists you created now requires clicking on the library at the bottom, then playlist at them top. I’m also a GPM refugee and the YouTube music app is a shit choice for podcasts.

    • @webjukebox@lemmy.world
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      29 months ago

      Before you get used to YTM and they drop that too,

      Sure they will integrate YTM into YT, using just a tab to switch.

      • @Stopher@reddthat.com
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        39 months ago

        They already do this on my google TV. The YTM app just opens YT with a music tab. Won’t be long before the mobile apps follow.