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> I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be e

> I do think that podcasting is ripe for disruption and a great candidate for a "super app" that can end up being people's go-to to listen to podcasts and be exposed to new ones. What would a disruptive new "super app" bring to the table compared to every other podcast app that already does this? I'm partial to Pocket Casts personally.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
Same here. I don't use Spotify for podcasts, even though I pay for premium, because I have Pocket Casts. I listen to podcasts at 2.7x. Not the 2.5x or 3.0x speeds Spotify insists I have to choose among. I have podcast-specific settings. Podcasts like Lex Fridman start at exactly 7 minutes in, so that I avoid predictable ad segments. The player cuts out silence and skips pauses automatically. It's nice that it tells me how many hundreds of hours I saved last year just by skipping silence. Pocket Casts doesn't put up one banner after another warning me to learn more about Covid, just in case people in the episode say something that the official narrative won't catch up to for 6~18 more months. Also Pocket Casts doesn't put banners on its home page reminding me to tamp down my assumed racism and avoid beating up Asian people. If Spotify made a podcast player better than Pocket Casts and stuck to letting me listen to podcasts without US-centric political banners, then I'd be using Spotify. But I don't see how they ever can do that.
- gruffin 4y ago
  > I listen to podcasts at 2.7x Jesus lord. And here I go at 1.25x and sometimes 1.5x and think that's fast as fuck.
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    If you're a native speaker listening to native speakers, you can probably easily do 2x after a few hours of getting used to it. If you're listening to someone with an accent you might have to slow it down a lot. Likewise if your audio quality isn't very good or if you're concentrating too much on another task. E.g. when I'm walking in familiar neighborhoods 2.7x is easy but when the area is even somewhat unfamiliar I either slow it down to 1.x or turn it off, because I suddenly find it hard to grok the content. I first started speeding up my podcasts when I heard that blind people can listen above 4x ~ 6x speed without missing a beat. I'm still trying to break the 3x barrier.
    - nickstinemates 4y ago
      This is an optimization I am happy to live without. I usually digest podcasts in pieces, and very rarely, outside of driving, listen to one from start to finish. I consume audio books the same way.
- paradox460 4y ago
  Has pocketcasts added the ability to replace all silences with a fixed length one? While I like the silence skipping feature, I've found that sometimes its a bit TOO effective, and you lose a little bit of speaking cadence. I'd love to replace all silences longer than 1s with just a 1s silence
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    No idea, but that's really clever! I hope someone from Pocket Casts is reading this.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

Same here. I don't use Spotify for podcasts, even though I pay for premium, because I have Pocket Casts. I listen to podcasts at 2.7x. Not the 2.5x or 3.0x speeds Spotify insists I have to choose among. I have podcast-specific settings. Podcasts like Lex Fridman start at exactly 7 minutes in, so that I avoid predictable ad segments. The player cuts out silence and skips pauses automatically. It's nice that it tells me how many hundreds of hours I saved last year just by skipping silence. Pocket Casts doesn't put up one banner after another warning me to learn more about Covid, just in case people in the episode say something that the official narrative won't catch up to for 6~18 more months. Also Pocket Casts doesn't put banners on its home page reminding me to tamp down my assumed racism and avoid beating up Asian people. If Spotify made a podcast player better than Pocket Casts and stuck to letting me listen to podcasts without US-centric political banners, then I'd be using Spotify. But I don't see how they ever can do that.

gruffin 4y ago
> I listen to podcasts at 2.7x Jesus lord. And here I go at 1.25x and sometimes 1.5x and think that's fast as fuck.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  If you're a native speaker listening to native speakers, you can probably easily do 2x after a few hours of getting used to it. If you're listening to someone with an accent you might have to slow it down a lot. Likewise if your audio quality isn't very good or if you're concentrating too much on another task. E.g. when I'm walking in familiar neighborhoods 2.7x is easy but when the area is even somewhat unfamiliar I either slow it down to 1.x or turn it off, because I suddenly find it hard to grok the content. I first started speeding up my podcasts when I heard that blind people can listen above 4x ~ 6x speed without missing a beat. I'm still trying to break the 3x barrier.
  - nickstinemates 4y ago
    This is an optimization I am happy to live without. I usually digest podcasts in pieces, and very rarely, outside of driving, listen to one from start to finish. I consume audio books the same way.
paradox460 4y ago
Has pocketcasts added the ability to replace all silences with a fixed length one? While I like the silence skipping feature, I've found that sometimes its a bit TOO effective, and you lose a little bit of speaking cadence. I'd love to replace all silences longer than 1s with just a 1s silence
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  No idea, but that's really clever! I hope someone from Pocket Casts is reading this.