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You may choose to go through a big integrated directory-and-player system, but the content is read into Apple Podcasts via feeds of a standardized format hosted
by mintplant 8y ago
You may choose to go through a big integrated directory-and-player system, but the content is read into Apple Podcasts via feeds of a standardized format hosted across the internet, and your device is also downloading the audio content from arbitrary third-party servers. Because of this, I can---and do---quite happily pull down those same feeds and content directly to my own Android device via my app of choice.
- Endy 8y agoBy the same token, people can choose to watch videos on YouTube/Dailymotion/Vimeo; or they can seek out self-hosted videos on the same topic all over the internet, which they can either stream or download to their device of choice. The presence of an extremely small minority does not change the real centralization of the marketplace as a whole.
- mintplant 8y agoI think the situation with podcasts is different, because I'm not required to go through Apple Podcasts to get to the same content from the same underlying sources. To access videos on a YouTube channel, I'm required to go through YouTube.