3 ms·

If podcasting is truly distributed, then by definition it should be able to survive Apple podcasts going away. It's an interesting thought experiment. In what

If podcasting is truly distributed, then by definition it should be able to survive Apple podcasts going away. It's an interesting thought experiment. In what way does the ecosystem rely on Apple's infrastructure? Do listeners on Android, or even a third-party apps on iOS, use Apple's podcasts directory for search and discoverability? The fact that Apple haven't attempted to squeeze podcasting is perhaps an indicator that the ecosystem doesn't really depend on Apple (and they know it).

kemayo 3y ago
> In what way does the ecosystem rely on Apple's infrastructure? Do listeners on Android, or even a third-party apps on iOS, use Apple's podcasts directory for search and discoverability? Depends on which client you use. Google Podcasts has its own directory. However, it's approximately-true that any third party app on iOS / Android that aren't run by a big company (Spotify, Google, Amazon) use Apple's directory for their podcast-search. (Pocket Casts, Castbox, etc on Android all definitely use it.)
tcmart14 3y ago
It is distributed, but the problem comes in, what if everyone is using the same mechanism to distribute it. I guess a good, more clear example might be, using bitcoin as an example, Bitcoin is a distributed digital currency where anyone can run their own node. Cool. But what if everyone runs their bitcoin node on AWS's infrastructure. Sure, bitcoin itself is distributed, but it has a single point of failure of if Amazon's AWS goes to shit. Or think about Cloudflare. When Cloudflare has an outage, it feels like half the internet goes down. There is no requirement for all these people use to Cloudflare specifically, but a sufficiently large portion of the market has converged on utilizing Cloudflare.
boring_twenties 3y ago
I use AntennaPod from F-Droid, and it has the following search options, in this order: Apple, fyyd, gpodder, Podcast Index.
madeofpalk 3y ago
> Do listeners on Android, or even a third-party apps on iOS, use Apple's podcasts directory for search and discoverability? Yes, many third party apps use Apple's podcast directory. Probably many on Android. The other option is https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/

kemayo 3y ago

> In what way does the ecosystem rely on Apple's infrastructure? Do listeners on Android, or even a third-party apps on iOS, use Apple's podcasts directory for search and discoverability? Depends on which client you use. Google Podcasts has its own directory. However, it's approximately-true that any third party app on iOS / Android that aren't run by a big company (Spotify, Google, Amazon) use Apple's directory for their podcast-search. (Pocket Casts, Castbox, etc on Android all definitely use it.)

tcmart14 3y ago

It is distributed, but the problem comes in, what if everyone is using the same mechanism to distribute it. I guess a good, more clear example might be, using bitcoin as an example, Bitcoin is a distributed digital currency where anyone can run their own node. Cool. But what if everyone runs their bitcoin node on AWS's infrastructure. Sure, bitcoin itself is distributed, but it has a single point of failure of if Amazon's AWS goes to shit. Or think about Cloudflare. When Cloudflare has an outage, it feels like half the internet goes down. There is no requirement for all these people use to Cloudflare specifically, but a sufficiently large portion of the market has converged on utilizing Cloudflare.

boring_twenties 3y ago

I use AntennaPod from F-Droid, and it has the following search options, in this order: Apple, fyyd, gpodder, Podcast Index.

madeofpalk 3y ago

> Do listeners on Android, or even a third-party apps on iOS, use Apple's podcasts directory for search and discoverability? Yes, many third party apps use Apple's podcast directory. Probably many on Android. The other option is https://podcastindex.org/ https://podcastindex.org/