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Adblock Radio: An adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts
- motdiem 7y agoprevious conversation here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18855029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18855029
- dest 7y agoHello, author of Adblock Radio here. Thanks for posting this. I can answer questions if you have any. You can read more on the context of this project in this article: https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio-ad-block-radio-podcast/ https://www.adblockradio.com/blog/2018/11/15/designing-audio...
- amrrs 7y agoI know we don't want to see / hear ads. But at the same time, these ads on the podcast are making livelihoods/income for those content creators and If we strip that off of them, saying I don't like ads but hey I do like your content. Where do you think we can have the line?
- gdhbcc 7y agoTheir need to make a living is not a legitimate excuse to brainwash me. If they cannot find an ethical business model, then they must go out of business.
- amrrs 7y agoI guess not every single ad is about Brainwashing. If that's the case of your wish, then every single company on the planet would go bust because every company would be selling something to you through ads or pitches at some point. I hate Display ads because they're content heavy, irrelevant and suck my personal information. But podcast ads are not targetting nor using my cookie or phone id. It's just some content creator is getting paid to get the word out and in fact the podcaster would make it clear that this is an AD unlike in many other platforms where inline and native ads are common.
- iamstupidsimple 7y ago> But podcast ads are not targetting nor using my cookie or phone id. You say that, but there are products to allow dynamically insert personalised ads server side when you download a podcast.
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoPodcasts are RSS feeds. Not "like" RSS feeds, literally RSS feeds. There are are dynamic ad inserts on some (usually from bigger companies), but they're limited to GeoIP and time. The OP is absolutely correct in that podcast ads cannot use cookies or device IDs. This is in large part why we're starting to see companies make "podcasts" that aren't podcasts at all, requiring proprietary players. At that point they really don't need to sell ads against their shows, because they're collecting data on you in a way that a podcast you're listening to on a typical podcast player absolutely cannot.
- iamstupidsimple 7y agoI fail to see how RSS feeds can't still use cookies? Once you've got a cookie then the feed can easily add tracking links or a unique mp3 file with personalised ads inserted. It's trivial to do this with a web server. Edit: This assumes using a web browser to access the feeds. Obviously cookies won't be kept with an app.
- La1n 7y agoI would not cry over companies going bankrupt that sell products that I need to see ads for to realise I need or want them. Not every single company would go bust for many businesses provide things people need or want without having been exposed to ads. Edit: Corrected autocorrect
- Konnstann 7y agoSo the only companies you would want to exist are the ones that have monopolies (or close to) in their markets? I would much rather see marketing from competitors, so I could at least have a launching point to do my own research.
- dest 7y agoMy dream would be that people that are fine with ads should have them, while people against should be able to subscribe to the content. Like Spotify actually, but radio does not offer that.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tudelo 7y agoIs this sustainable?
- bootlooped 7y agoSam Harris' podcast runs entirely on donations, so I think that model is at least viable for certain audience demographics.
- tudelo 7y agoI agree, it definitely is sustainable for certain types of content. However, even NPR has donation campaigns where they are running ads for themselves and they also run ads for other companies that support them. I guess if they were forced they could change this habit.
- Faark 7y ago> Sam Harris' podcast runs entirely on donations He seems to be shifting away from that. There is a "private feed" that will "increasingly carry content that will not be available on the public one" (from first 20sec of Making Sense #168). So yeah, he either wants more income or just donations isn't that great.
- matz1 7y agoThe "line" can be different for everyone. For some, all ads is bad and should be block, for other some ads are good and shouldn't be block. You should fight for your own preffered line, wherever that is. In the reality there are no one "correct" line. The line is just the equilibrium between this opposing sides.
- onemoresoop 7y agoIf ads were less invasive we’d tolerate them for sure. The problem is that they devoure any medium completely with an excessive quantity of ads, volume bumping, flashing banners, page hijacks, dubious js and are really innefective to begin with. If they were more expensive and used more sparingly they’d be tolerated. But they’re not and people are fighting back.
- therealdrag0 7y agoPodcast ads are so easy to skip. Don't even have to open your phone, just fastforward using headphone buttons.
- imglorp 7y agoI'd like to give a shout out to one pod caster in particular that might be of interest to this audience: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com https://softwareengineeringdaily.com There are ads, but they are spoken by the host in his normal tone. No loudness tricks, just one minute reading the copy. I suppose OP's tool won't detect this unless a human tags all the spots. Second, the ads are focused to the audience and may actually be useful sometimes: hosting companies, SAS tools, etc.
- driverdan 7y agoYou just described most podcast ads. The majority are read by the host(s) and are target at the audience. It doesn't make them better.
- willio58 7y agoThe line is different for all people. I love the concept of ad blockers in all forms of media. Why should I be forced to take in your ads? I can already skip them with a quick 2 or 3 taps of the skip button, why should I be forced to do that while I go about my day?
- joe-collins 7y agoI don't know about podcasting, but for music, streaming royalties are so abysmal that I can't feel guilt about blocking ads on those services. If I want to support an artist, I'll buy their music on Bandcamp, where I know they'll get the majority of the purchase price.
- jccalhoun 7y agoThey get money on downloads so they have no idea whether i listen to the ad, skip through them manually, or use this.
- SkyBelow 7y agoMaybe it will cause improvements in how ads are done. I buy lots of games of certain genres. I'm always wanting to know about similar games in those genres that match my taste. But almost all game ads are for the major big games that I generally either don't buy or already know about and will buy ad or not. Ads that inform me of new games that meet my taste will easily convert to sells far beyond the rate of standard ads. But such ads rarely exist at all, the closest thing being sponsored reviews but even those I generally have to know about to look up. But at the same time, I want these relevant ads without giving up medical information, health information, relationship status, political views, or similar such information.
- inglor 7y agoAs a fellow tfjs user - what were the most annoying parts in the API access for you?
- dest 7y agoAPI was fine when I used it, my main concern is that it was significantly slower than the Python / native one. Maybe performance is ISO now, I haven't tested for a while.
- dddw 7y agointeresting project, kudos! what does the program do when it identifies an ad? skip it like tivo? how much seconds buffering would you need? some ads (podcasts) can be quite long. with a small buffer can it inject some smooth jazz or something? radiosilence isn't an option of course ;)
- benoliver999 7y agoI just tried it and it worked so well I started laughing maniacally
- Justsignedup 7y agoWonder if this can be applied to generic audio on Android. Also for things like YouTube ads. Possibilities are endless. Can this be applied to sponsor messages on podcasts. Wonder if there's enough of a difference to notice it.
- MadMatt13 7y agoOk This is incredible. Can we make PRs or something to propose new radio streams? I will definitely use it a lot.
- Yuval_Halevi 7y agoUsually, I don't like when projects describe themselves using large brands as comparison. But this one is great 'Machine learning meets Shazam.'
- heavenlyblue 7y agoThis is like saying "SERP meets Google".
- dest 7y agoActually Shazam is tech for acoustic fingerprinting, which is quite far away from machine learning. In your example SERP and Google name almost the same thing.
- Tepix 7y agoI think the podcasts i listen to will not work, the moderators speak the ads themselves. Luckily it‘s easy to skip ahead 15 seconds at a time. At least ads in podcasts cannot track me so i don‘t feel i have to block them for that reason alone.
- dest 7y agoIndeed in this situation it will not work in the current state of the ad detector.
- Nextgrid 7y agoThere's a thing called "server side ad injection" (more like cancer injection) that inserts arbitrary ads directly in the audio stream so the ad is independent from the original producer. Presumably they do some rudimentary tracking based on IPs, user-agent and whether your podcast client downloaded the file past the point where the ad is injected.
- datenhorst 7y agoYeah I listen to a somewhat niche podcast from the UK, and recently I've been getting ads in my native German in it.
- t0mas88 7y agoI worked in that industry 12 years ago, and already back then indeed there was a simple method to link some ID (usually cookie) to the injected content. The startup I worked at used it for contests, out of 100k downloads of a podcast, 1 of them would get a different starting or ending segment to give away something. So it was persistent to your user-login on the podcasting portal (which was a thing back then :-))
- the_watcher 7y agoI'm fine with podcast ads because I want the excellent podcasts I enjoy to continue existing. That said, I cannot stand injected ads, since they're often injected in awkward places and are jarring to the experience. I'll (not exactly happily but not angrily) listen to a live read where the podcaster has at least taken the time to try not to destroy the flow of the entire podcast. All that said, the best ads (from a listener experience POV) are the extremely short, to the point ads that are honestly too short to put the effort into skipping. Planet Money (and the NPR podcasts I listen to in general) does this well. I'm curious what their CPMs are relative to a typical ad.
- sambe 7y agoThere's something deeply satisfying about the idea that the annoying tone and shoutiness (and volume increase) of most ads could be used against them for filtering.
- smhost 7y agoat the same time, i don't know how comfortable i feel about incentivizing ad distribution companies to become more stealthy.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoTake a closer look at that feeling. If you're not comfortable with what they're trying to do, but also not comfortable with trying to mitigate it, as it'll only incentivize them to do worse - then how comfortable are you with them existing? The problem is ad distribution companies here and now. The problem won't be gone until they're gone.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThe problem is people are willing to pay for certain products with their attention, via ads, but not with money. Given the choice of paying $1 for a podcast or pirating said podcast, sufficient number of people would not choose the first option to make it a viable business.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThat has not been established. In fact, the whole music, video and computer game industries are evidence of the opposite - even before DRM and convenient streaming/store platforms on-line, piracy was still just a drop in a bucket and businesses asking for money up front were perfectly viable.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoPeople prefer free over paying all the time. Just see all of us wanting to avoid paying for the environmental externalities. The only reason people don’t choose free over paying is if the convenience or cost is worth it. For music, organizing and having easy access to all music files is worth $10/month or less to many people versus risking copyright infringement charges. But raise that to $100/month, and see what people do... The ease of transferring data on the internet and high bandwidth connections tilts the favor in choosing the free version. Perhaps paid podcasts are possible if it’s easy enough, I might not mind 50 cents or $1 via Apple Pay in my podcasts app, or a subscription service that eliminates all ads. Even if we ignore the piracy angle, an additional problem is if a vendor provides a service for free or cheaper with ads, people choose that one over one that is paid. So for items meant for mass consumption, such as podcasts, the more lucrative ones will be the ones with ads. Similar to how no one can compete with free offerings from Google or Facebook.
- person_of_color 7y agoCould this wrok on TV?
- joshvm 7y agoI was about to say that Tivo has offered this in a limited capacity for a while. Unfortunately it looks like they're actually forcing people to watch ads on recordings now. https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/21/20876976/tivo-pre-roll-ads-commercials-dvr-recordings https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/21/20876976/tivo-pre-roll-ad...
- tiborsaas 7y agoIt would be relatively simple to implement since you have image data as well besides audio and animations before and after ads remain the same for months.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoNeat software, but I think this is less defensible than other ad blockers. With web ad blockers you protect against tracking, privacy violations and potentially malware and thus don't see "unacceptable ads". In contrast this seems to be about blocking ads just for the sake of blocking ads.
- throwawawathrow 7y agoYeah that's the point. Fuck ads.
- obituary_latte 7y agoWhy would anyone have to defend blocking ads? It’s a personal choice that doesn’t negatively impact anyone. You could argue that if enough people did it, it could effect the potential advertising revenue, but if that were the case then the end result is not that “people are bad for blocking ads” but rather that the current state of advertising is incompatible with user needs and desires.
- detuur 7y agoI can't be the only one who literally can't stand the sound of radio advertising. They make a point of using as many annoying and attention-grabbing sounds as possible, not to mention the cheap and cheesy jingles. I'll often find myself turning the radio down to the second-lowest volume it goes, so I can turn it back up when there's actual music. Equally often I turn it down and then forget about it for the rest of the trip. Honestly, a trip in silence is sometimes preferable to one where I have to micro-manage the volume knob, let alone one where I have to listen to radio ads.
- Siemer 7y agoEver since raising the volume on ads was banned they simply switched to using using limiters, that basically boost all frequencies to achieve the same effect. They'll even use common ring tones or the buzz of a silenced phone to draw your attention. Personally I mute or switch channels as soon as the commercials start and I've actually turned down at least one job offer because they had radio on the office floor.
- jordanpg 7y agoRight now, there's teams of people at companies like Spotify and Stitcher, frantic in front of whiteboards, trying to plan a future for podcasts wherein it will be harder/impossible to skip the ads. First, they have to control the distribution. Then, they have to build the tech, which will obviously involve some kind of DRM. To say that I hope they fail is an understatement. But I know they'll try because in the internet economy, companies simply must fight, kick, and scratch for every last fraction of penny of advertising revenue. I hope that they are unable to wrest sufficient control over the distribution channels to force this ugly future upon us. Indie podcasts will be safe, but the well-produced, mainstream podcasts will go the way of cable TV and it will be gross. Ads ruin everything.
- harel 7y agoA lack of balance is why we can't have nice things. There has to be a middle ground where publishers make money to keep publishing and consumers of those publishing keep consuming the content without being annoyed to the point of wanting to abolish all ads. The result of extremism here is that it wouldn't be viable financially to produce content. Paid subscription models don't seem to work leaving advertising the only revenue stream publishers have. I'm saying all this from a content consumer point of view, not a publishing one.
- na85 7y agoThe false dichotomy of "ads vs any content at all, whatsoever" plays perfectly into the narrative of the scummy advertising industry. Consumer tastes change. Just as we saw a precipitous drop in smokers from the 1950s to now, we are witnessing a sea change where the human parasites are slowly waking up to the revelation that their business model has a sunset. Consumers are starting to be more vocal and active in their (justified) desire to not be bombarded with advertising everywhere they go.
- throwawawathrow 7y ago'What about my business model' is not a valid argument. You are not in fact entitled to one. Personally I'd rather see 95% less 'content' on the Internet if it meant it were ad free. I'd rather have no Facebook than one that serves you personalized ads. I'd rather have no online news media than news websites that serve ads. I'd rather have no television programs than watch programs with commercials. 'Content creators' often overestimate how much people care about their 'content' and they think we couldn't do without them. Well, most of us can. And most of us hate ads. I'm sure, in an ad-free world, that content creators who really care would find a way to make it work. Maybe there'd be less content this way, but so be it. Quality isn't quantity.
- ramshorst 7y agoGreat to see you pop on the homepage of HN man !
- dest 7y agoThanks Toon ;)
- buboard 7y agoWe also need to start seeing advertising as a way for publishers/performers/makers to cut a slice of benefit from corporate profits. If we remove advertising everywhere, corporates are just going to seek non-media ways to market , and the whole mediascape will lose.
- throwawawathrow 7y agoAs far as I remember there was an Internet without ads. I don't think we need literal garbage stimuli for media to thrive.
- buboard 7y agoWhen?
- Intermernet 7y agoNot that long ago. When I was in university in 1996 there were almost no ads. When I left university in 1999 there were a lot more. The quality of content didn't really increase in that time. Right now there are youtube channels that don't monetize, and have good content. There are soundcloud profiles, blogs and short stories that have no ads. Most of the advertised internet is garbage, but it's also by far the most popular, due to the ads. Advertising skews people's views of worthiness, and makes a mockery of honest recommendations. That's literally what it was invented to do!
- DoctorPenguin 7y agoGreat idea by the way. Of course skipping commercials in any kind of media was always a thing to do and was not invented for web ads only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_skipping
- tinus_hn 7y agoBe sure to complain when there’s no more free radio targeting your taste!
- waylandsmithers 7y agoIt's a cool technical achievement, sure. But as a listener of many podcasts I do not support this at all. I love that podcasters can make a living or at least a little money while I listen for free.
- FroshKiller 7y agoI suppose you've never once fast-forwarded through an ad in a podcast you listen to.
- L3viathan 7y agoDo not use it, then.
- lcfcjs2 7y agoIsn't this the same as saying people shouldn't be allowed to drive electric cars because you prefer internal combustion engines?
- Hitton 7y agoEven though I don't really listen to radio or podcasts, this looks great. How does it handle blocking ads when listening to live radio? Just silence?
- exDM69 7y agoI absolutely hate advertising on the radio. But thank goodness in "socialist" Scandinavia I have several ad-free radio stations to choose from. We've got a tax-funded national broadcaster (used to be a fee on radio ownership, then TV ownership before, but now it's tax funded) and some volunteer-run organizations that have their own radio station. Our national broadcaster also has a world feed from other national broadcasters (in their own language), the BBC World feed for example. Not only do they provide ad-free content, but the broadcast is usually more interesting than the commercial stations. Where the commercial channels have a very short playlist that repeats over and over again (something to do with licensing deals from the record producers), the non-commercial channels have radio show hosts/DJs who can choose what they play. Some of the programs are rather specialized, like a show that plays only Cuban music and another one that plays Estonian music. In addition to ad-free radio and TV broadcasts, they also have a news website without ads. Not everyone agrees with me, but I'll gladly pay some taxes for this service. The ad-free radio and TV is only a bonus, what I really want to pay for is the independent news outlet.
- mxuribe 7y agoCable tv service in the U.S. started originally without ads - if i recall correctly. In fact, the whole premis was: you pay for tv, wouldn't need to watch ads, and that's how tv programs would get funded...But, that changed severely along the way. </sigh>
- draugadrotten 7y ago> But thank goodness in "socialist" Scandinavia I have several ad-free radio stations to choose from. It is naive to say that they are "ad-free". They are free from classical ads, but they are politically very left. More than 50 percent(!) of the journalists employed by Public Radio SR and Public Television SVT are voting for the Green Left, a party which has only 4% of the national voters. The journalists are hence very different from the average Sven. "Över 50 procent av journalisterna på Sveriges Radio och Sveriges Television sympatiserar med miljöpartiet, kommersiell radio och tv kommer därefter. Minst andel sympatisörer har miljöpartiet i landsortspress och populärpress." https://www.jmg.gu.se/digitalAssets/1369/1369226_journalist-2011-journalistboken-kap-13.pdf https://www.jmg.gu.se/digitalAssets/1369/1369226_journalist-... The bias is very noticeable when it comes to coverage of topics like Greta, Trump, Macron, Pride, etc. Please also note that SVT Public television is broadcasting sponsored content, and ads.But they call it sponsored content. Public radio SR is allowed to do it as well by the same laws.
- savingGrace 7y agoIt keeps being mentioned that podcasters will be hurt by this, but I'm not sure how that is so? Are the advertisers going to know that someone didn't hear their ad? Are the podcasters not going to get paid for still playing the ads? Are the people who are in love with listening to ads, still not going to get to listen to their ads? Why is this not a win all the way around?
- dwighttk 7y agoPossibly: podcast explosion is being funded by these advertisers who will move on to a different medium if their ads stop performing.
- jplayer01 7y agoI'm totally okay with ads in my podcasts if they're helping fund one of my favorite activities without profiling and tracking me as an individual. I don't want even more podcasts to go to Patron route - I can't afford it. I seriously hope this doesn't become popular.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoNice! Wanted to try something similar for a while using SDR to capture FM radio and start switching radio stations when the radio jockey starts speaking i.e. automatically switch stations when songs are not playing. The Radio jockeys here (India) have started promoting ads as part of their regular content without any disclaimers or mentions that it is a promotion. e.g. They just say, 'you should put your child in this college for 100% placement' without mentioning they are being sponsored to say so. So, just adblocker wont cut; I need (RJ+ad) blocker. I might have a jumpstart thanks to this project!
- cwkoss 7y agoContact the advertiser's sales department, waste their time, then chew them out for their shady advertising practices. Tell them that every time you hear an ad for them without a disclaimer, you will personally tell 10 friends or strangers that their organization is run by unethical crooks and should be avoided at all cost. Since you're in India, I wonder how economical it would be to hire a telemarketing company to do this for you.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y agoAlthough it might legally possible for me to take them to court for their advertising practices, integrity in Indian media is very negligible. Only few news media, mostly those which had been existing for over hundred years as news paper, still maintain some integrity after switching to online media but obviously they are at the verge of bankruptcy as they cannot compete with limited attention, instant gratification, confirmation bias fuelling media houses.
- cwkoss 7y agoA robodialer with a message complaining about their advertising practices could probably lock up their sales line for a couple days for the same cost as a few meals. Humans would likely be more persuasive though.
- nautilus12 7y agoThis will result in advertisements working their way deeply into songs themselves same way podcasters now just talk about how they like products on their podcasts instead of explicitely advertising (example: Joe Rogan and Tesla)
- justforfunhere 7y agoI have mostly given up on Radio when I am driving my car ( Thanks Bluetooth and Amazon music). It has gotten worse over the past few years. I live in Delhi, India, and we have our fair share of Radio channels here. Over the last ten years, I have noticed a pretty interesting ( disturbing ? ) trend in the Ads that are streamed across all the Radio channels. Back when the whole Radio scene was just starting up, the ads were few, the RJs used to talk a lot more ( and made sense ) and songs were played in entirety. Slowly they have changed to a point where RJs are just meant to be show pieces who are there to say not more than four-five lines of jokes/sarcasms during a two hour period. The Songs are not played in their entirety. They are stripped at both ends. The Ads have gotten louder, more offensive, aggressive etc. And now some Radio Channels tend have small sound bites that are played repeatedly all day, that justify the streaming of Ads. This I really don't understand. Edit: Typos
- Nextgrid 7y agoI've recently been to Romania and rediscovered radio. I haven't listened in a decade due to ads, but seems like at least one station there manages to keep a good balance: https://www.dancefm.ro/ https://www.dancefm.ro/ - their ads are relatively rare and not obnoxious (I guess not understanding the language helps).
- onemoresoop 7y agoADS should be more expensive for advertisers and pushed more sparingly on users. If that was the case we’d probably tolerate them, there would be no need for ADBlocking and such.
- donclark 7y agoHas anyone applied this to Alexa or Google Home devices? I am interested in funding DEV for the Google Home device. Anyone interested in talking further?
- accounn 7y agoWhy would you have literal spy device in your home?
- snakeOyl 7y agoIn the same way that the mp3 changed the music industry, bittorrent changed how Hollywood made movies adblockers are going to reshape how the internet works. Because adblockers drive down the value of ads so substantially companies will give up on trying to pay their overhead costs by using advertising and instead switch to a Netflix like subscription model. The irony with this is that once you’ve had to log in to a site with payment information your privacy and anonymity are completely erased and you’ve often given the provider the ability to run background and credit checks on yourself.
- BAReF00t 7y agoI used to block ads on ShoutCast, 15 years ago. StreamRipper cut the streams by ID3 tag change and accompanying silence. My script just played the ripped MP3s, and ignored the ones with an ad-like ID3 title or that were too short to be a song. You could either pre-record and then skip backward and forward, or listen live and have nothing played back in the ex-ad gaps. I even had a remote control with "keep current" and "keep previous" buttons, to put the songs into my archive. Until the Content Mafia ruined everything to keep their cocaine flowing. :/ (I worked in there, and I have enough material, to testify on the cocaine abuse that dominate[ds] the industry.)
- _bxg1 7y agoThis is not a good thing. Ad-blockers on the internet are justified because of invasive tracking. Radio and podcasts have no such thing, and ads are are central to their sustainability. If you want to push the world to improve, you can't just rage blindly, you have to identify and move towards a solution that's sustainable for everyone. In the case of ad-supported businesses and services, this means non-tracking, non-intrusive advertisement (combined with subscription models, but that doesn't work for everything). If you want to push back against tracking in ads, you have to support non-tracking ads. Otherwise there's no incentive for anything to change.
- chmln 7y ago> If you want to push back against tracking in ads, you have to support non-tracking ads. Why? I don't want any ads whatsoever. Maybe it's harsh but if they can't survive without ads then let them go? Many good podcasts already charge money.
- _bxg1 7y agoWell for one thing, it would be literally impossible to establish a subscription model for radio stations. For another thing, online news sources have been trying to make subscriptions work for years and nobody's figured out how to do it yet. But going beyond that, who are you to declare that entire mediums' worth of content is invalid simply because of the lack of available mechanisms for collecting the revenue they need to sustain themselves? What a gross oversimplification. If you want behavior to change, you have to provide a valid alternative. You can only say "I won't put up with X" if there's a viable Y to replace it with. Otherwise it's just "I won't put up with you". In which case, when it comes to businesses, the other party will either get even more aggressive with their tactics, or just die altogether.
- lostgame 7y ago>> Well for one thing, it would be literally impossible to establish a subscription model for radio stations. I get what you’re saying, but Sirius XM would like a word with you.
- neilobremski 7y agoInevitably the goal of a project like this is going to start the fiery debate around artist compensation, free content, and advertising in general. BUT this is a great way to really see (or rather hear) ML work. It reminds me a little of some TiVo competitor back-in-the-day where you could hit a "skip commercials" button and it would try to get back to the show by some visual or audible change/gap. Since then, somehow we've lost interest in being able to skip commercials but I still remember fast-forwarding on my VCR and how it hurt that DVDs prevented even that. This is solid progress on one side of the fence because you know the other side is working on new things too.
- wayneftw 7y agoI listen to a radio show every morning and the only ads I tolerate are the ones spoken live, by the hosts. If all ads were done like that again, I’d listen to much more advertising.
- magic_beans 7y agoPodcasts are free. Let me repeat that: PODCASTS. ARE. FREE. I hate ads as much as the rest of you, but how the eff does anyone on HN expect brilliant, creative, and hard-working podcast creators to earn a living? (there are truly some podcast gems out there).
- sizzle 7y agoPlease do television next, I'll donate for this functionality even if all it does is auto-mute my "smart" tv, so I can tune out the mindnumbing advertising.
- oriettaxx 7y agototally agree! I Italy very often ads are in higher volume: so annoying, so maybe a filter will sure add info on how to spot ads
- sizzle 7y agoSmart TV's might have some developer accessible APIs, would love to contribute to an open source smartTV OS, anyone know if this project already exists?
- dzonga 7y agofor one thing, I don't mind ads in podcasts since they're usually relevant and use no tracking. Ads like those, are a pass. What I hate are the intrusive ads on the web & mobile that want to track the color of your underwear: looking at your fb. & I think the path to a sustainable open web is having a small dose of non intrusive ads e.g just a static banner for a sponsor on a site. no tracking or maybe coupon codes.