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If you’re paying money, signing an agreement and uploading files, Apple isn’t tricking you: you’re not doing your due diligence OR you just don’t care if anyone

by SllX 4y ago

If you’re paying money, signing an agreement and uploading files, Apple isn’t tricking you: you’re not doing your due diligence OR you just don’t care if anyone outside the Podcasts app can listen (there are podcasters who for reasons—good or not—assume their reach is only about as far as iTunes/Apple Podcasts). This is crap, but it’s not because the deal Apple is offering to podcasters is crap: $20/year hosting and distribution into the biggest podcast ecosystem that exists with the option to charge a premium and keep 70%; it’s because they’re trying to turn their Podcast app into YouTube for Podcasts with an App Store model which is just on its face total crap. The fix is to find a different hosting provider and decline the services Apple is offering you.

janalsncm 4y ago
I can’t agree that signing an agreement means Apple gets to behave however they want within the confines of the law. A contract should not be something that one hides behind, but something that someone holds up as enshrining a shared, common sense understanding of an agreement. The fact that an Apple Podcasts user tried to do something that is 1) not unreasonable given other podcasting platforms and 2) not clearly understood to be contractually barred tells me that there is unacceptable deception. Companies can write all sorts of convoluted (and legally enforceable) contracts but that is not the future we should be striving towards. Having the law on your side does not make it ethical.
- SllX 4y ago
  If you’re a hobbyist, you might go “oh no, this won’t work out, Overcast users can’t see my podcast” and switch hosting providers. If you’re going into podcasting as a business, don’t skimp on having a lawyer review the things you’ll be signing up and paying for, and if you skimp on that and get unlucky, expect to be doing the work required to move providers if what you signed up for isn’t satisfactory. It’s really that simple. This service costs this much and has these limitations, that service costs more but doesn’t have those limitations. So yeah, when you sign a service agreement, expect only exactly what the service offers in the agreement, and if the terms are not satisfactory, go sign with someone else. What is the issue? If I can’t find someone’s podcast in Overcast, I’m simply never going to consider even listening to it. Conversely, some podcasters are actually okay with that and would prefer to pay for cheaper hosting. That’s a valid choice for them to make too, but they are making a choice whether they pay attention to it or not. Also: just a note, this is only a hosting issue. You can still list your podcast in the iTunes Podcast Directory (or whatever it’s called now) without hosting on Apple’s servers.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    > expect only exactly what the service offers in the agreement, and if the terms are not satisfactory, go sign with someone else. You can't go somewhere else, because going somewhere else means starting over from scratch. That's the whole point of my post: you're locked in. The customer who reached out with this issue has hundreds of episodes and can't reasonably manually reupload them all to another service.
    - SllX 4y ago
      And that sucks for them, but it is also what the service is. It’s a cheap way to funnel people through the Podcasts app and generate more services revenue for Apple; you can’t even really call it a podcast host by any reasonable definition. Spotify’s service is about funneling people through the Spotify app to sell subscriptions and ads. YouTube’s service is basically the same. It’s a legitimate service that they signed up for that if you know what you’re getting into probably isn’t the worst deal. Total crap though for podcast listeners, and also if you didn’t check out the service before committing to it. Sorry for your prospective customer, hopefully your post helps keep others out of this lobster trap.
      - ryanbrunner 4y ago
        On the topic of subscriptions, Spotify does have an open ecosystem where purchasing a subscription through Spotify isn't necessarily purchasing a subscription through Anchor. With Apple, the only subscription you're buying is Apple's subscriptions and other platforms are completely locked out.
        SllX 4y ago
        Well like I said above: > it’s because they’re trying to turn their Podcast app into YouTube for Podcasts with an App Store model which is just on its face total crap C’est la vie. I would give Spotify kudos but their own podcast foray is what caused me to quit them.
    - TylerE 4y ago
- smithza 4y ago
  The "is-should" gap here is irrelevant. In our ideal worlds Apple "should" not hide the data and protect the audio files with DRM. Apple argues against this position with their business interest in mind.
  - janalsncm 4y ago
    I disagree. To me the “is-should” gap is the only thing worth talking about. Everything else is just a matter of fact. I’m not a lawyer anyways so I don’t feel like my opinion on what the law is will be very helpful. Apple is going to do what is best for Apple, and when that is contrary to our interests we should talk about it. Laws of Man are not laws of nature, they are a perpetually shifting body of agreements that in a democracy we have some liberty to adjust.
    - SllX 4y ago
      You don’t need to be a lawyer to have opinions on what the law should be, but if you’re going to propose a legal reform you’re going to come up against the existing values that caused the existing laws to be formed. Contract law is about one of the oldest forms of law there is and it persists because it is fundamentally two or more parties coming to and being bound by an agreement. It is an age old tale at this point that you basically should know what you are paying for, why you’re paying for it, what you stand to gain and if you have any doubts about the terms of the service you feel unqualified to make a judgment call on, consult someone who lives and breathes this stuff. Apple offered terms. You accept or reject them or if you can, you renegotiate but you have to have a reason for them to consider renegotiating with you, as they’re not obligated to offer a service under any other terms than the ones they stipulated. So your concerns are really a policy dispute, not a legal one: you want the service Apple offered but not under the terms Apple offered them. How is this not resolved by either you refusing to use the service or them refusing to serve you? Neither one of you is being compelled to offer or make use of a particular podcasting service; and to be fair and I’ve been clear on this point, I think it’s a fair deal between the two parties involved that is also total crap for podcast listeners, but there’s a fair gap between thinking something is total crap and thinking there is a legislative remedy informed by good values that is fair to the service provider considering they could also and would be entirely within their rights to just not offer the service at all like all the years they didn’t offer this exact service beforehand but in which other podcast hosts have continued to exist (and still exist) and offer a like service on their terms. Why should any of that be any different?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bastawhiz 4y ago
> you’re not doing your due diligence OR you just don’t care if anyone outside the Podcasts app can listen If you don't know to ask, how would you make an informed choice? > the biggest podcast ecosystem that exists That's kind of the thing: people think "I'm going to do it right and host with Apple, they're the OG podcast company" and then find themselves trapped.
- SllX 4y ago
  I addressed those points already here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34524635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34524635
BlueTemplar 4y ago
YouTube is very different in that its videos are not DRM protected, but the alternatives are (today at least) much worse in terms of content diversity.

by SllX 4y ago

janalsncm 4y ago

I can’t agree that signing an agreement means Apple gets to behave however they want within the confines of the law. A contract should not be something that one hides behind, but something that someone holds up as enshrining a shared, common sense understanding of an agreement. The fact that an Apple Podcasts user tried to do something that is 1) not unreasonable given other podcasting platforms and 2) not clearly understood to be contractually barred tells me that there is unacceptable deception. Companies can write all sorts of convoluted (and legally enforceable) contracts but that is not the future we should be striving towards. Having the law on your side does not make it ethical.

SllX 4y ago
If you’re a hobbyist, you might go “oh no, this won’t work out, Overcast users can’t see my podcast” and switch hosting providers. If you’re going into podcasting as a business, don’t skimp on having a lawyer review the things you’ll be signing up and paying for, and if you skimp on that and get unlucky, expect to be doing the work required to move providers if what you signed up for isn’t satisfactory. It’s really that simple. This service costs this much and has these limitations, that service costs more but doesn’t have those limitations. So yeah, when you sign a service agreement, expect only exactly what the service offers in the agreement, and if the terms are not satisfactory, go sign with someone else. What is the issue? If I can’t find someone’s podcast in Overcast, I’m simply never going to consider even listening to it. Conversely, some podcasters are actually okay with that and would prefer to pay for cheaper hosting. That’s a valid choice for them to make too, but they are making a choice whether they pay attention to it or not. Also: just a note, this is only a hosting issue. You can still list your podcast in the iTunes Podcast Directory (or whatever it’s called now) without hosting on Apple’s servers.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  > expect only exactly what the service offers in the agreement, and if the terms are not satisfactory, go sign with someone else. You can't go somewhere else, because going somewhere else means starting over from scratch. That's the whole point of my post: you're locked in. The customer who reached out with this issue has hundreds of episodes and can't reasonably manually reupload them all to another service.
  - SllX 4y ago
    And that sucks for them, but it is also what the service is. It’s a cheap way to funnel people through the Podcasts app and generate more services revenue for Apple; you can’t even really call it a podcast host by any reasonable definition. Spotify’s service is about funneling people through the Spotify app to sell subscriptions and ads. YouTube’s service is basically the same. It’s a legitimate service that they signed up for that if you know what you’re getting into probably isn’t the worst deal. Total crap though for podcast listeners, and also if you didn’t check out the service before committing to it. Sorry for your prospective customer, hopefully your post helps keep others out of this lobster trap.
    - ryanbrunner 4y ago
      On the topic of subscriptions, Spotify does have an open ecosystem where purchasing a subscription through Spotify isn't necessarily purchasing a subscription through Anchor. With Apple, the only subscription you're buying is Apple's subscriptions and other platforms are completely locked out.
      - SllX 4y ago
        Well like I said above: > it’s because they’re trying to turn their Podcast app into YouTube for Podcasts with an App Store model which is just on its face total crap C’est la vie. I would give Spotify kudos but their own podcast foray is what caused me to quit them.
  - TylerE 4y ago
smithza 4y ago
The "is-should" gap here is irrelevant. In our ideal worlds Apple "should" not hide the data and protect the audio files with DRM. Apple argues against this position with their business interest in mind.
- janalsncm 4y ago
  I disagree. To me the “is-should” gap is the only thing worth talking about. Everything else is just a matter of fact. I’m not a lawyer anyways so I don’t feel like my opinion on what the law is will be very helpful. Apple is going to do what is best for Apple, and when that is contrary to our interests we should talk about it. Laws of Man are not laws of nature, they are a perpetually shifting body of agreements that in a democracy we have some liberty to adjust.
  - SllX 4y ago
    You don’t need to be a lawyer to have opinions on what the law should be, but if you’re going to propose a legal reform you’re going to come up against the existing values that caused the existing laws to be formed. Contract law is about one of the oldest forms of law there is and it persists because it is fundamentally two or more parties coming to and being bound by an agreement. It is an age old tale at this point that you basically should know what you are paying for, why you’re paying for it, what you stand to gain and if you have any doubts about the terms of the service you feel unqualified to make a judgment call on, consult someone who lives and breathes this stuff. Apple offered terms. You accept or reject them or if you can, you renegotiate but you have to have a reason for them to consider renegotiating with you, as they’re not obligated to offer a service under any other terms than the ones they stipulated. So your concerns are really a policy dispute, not a legal one: you want the service Apple offered but not under the terms Apple offered them. How is this not resolved by either you refusing to use the service or them refusing to serve you? Neither one of you is being compelled to offer or make use of a particular podcasting service; and to be fair and I’ve been clear on this point, I think it’s a fair deal between the two parties involved that is also total crap for podcast listeners, but there’s a fair gap between thinking something is total crap and thinking there is a legislative remedy informed by good values that is fair to the service provider considering they could also and would be entirely within their rights to just not offer the service at all like all the years they didn’t offer this exact service beforehand but in which other podcast hosts have continued to exist (and still exist) and offer a like service on their terms. Why should any of that be any different?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bastawhiz 4y ago

> you’re not doing your due diligence OR you just don’t care if anyone outside the Podcasts app can listen If you don't know to ask, how would you make an informed choice? > the biggest podcast ecosystem that exists That's kind of the thing: people think "I'm going to do it right and host with Apple, they're the OG podcast company" and then find themselves trapped.

SllX 4y ago
I addressed those points already here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34524635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34524635

BlueTemplar 4y ago

YouTube is very different in that its videos are not DRM protected, but the alternatives are (today at least) much worse in terms of content diversity.