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Google Podcasts service shuts down in the US next week
- willio58 3y agoI can only chuckle when I read things like this. There was another post on the homepage today talking about how podcasts in general are still growing in popularity. But Google fumbled the bag yet again!
- kevmoo1 3y agoThere's some consolidation here. Podcast support in YouTube music is a real thing. There is SO much overlap between YouTube Music videos and listening to music. There is also overlap between YouTube podcasts and listening to podcasts. Trying to align here makes a lot of sense. Tricky to pull off, sure, but it's not a dropped ball.
- nikkwong 3y agoThere are many podcasts that exist on Google podcasts but aren’t listed on YouTube music. Maybe around 20% of my podcast collection doesn’t exist on YouTube music; and they aren’t fringe podcasts either. Many are very mainstream. This makes YouTube music an inadequate replacement
- microflash 3y agoYou can directly add podcasts by their feed URL. They don't have to be on YouTube music. The discovery for such podcasts is non-existent, though.
- mindslight 3y agoConsolidating products makes sense to an engineer, but in general companies seek to create many redundant brands to confuse the market. For example Faceboot+Instagram, or how entire store aisles are filled as a simulation of more choices than just P&G and J&J.
- hiddencost 3y agoHonestly, at this point I hope the shut down most of the company. They tried to do everything, but ultimately they just showed that their corporate structure couldn't scale to that many employees.
- TillE 3y agoIt's rarely mentioned, but a major casualty of the Reader shutdown was Google Listen, a perfectly good podcast app which I think was just somebody's side project. It used Reader as a backend, so you could also manage your feeds in a browser. Really cool. It's just another example of Google failing to even keep their options open to take advantage of future developments. "Serial" would make podcasts mainstream just a year or so later.
- hiddencost 3y agoAntennaPod is better than Google Podcasts. I was upset until I switched, and then glad I got pushed to switch.
- monkeywork 3y agoPocketcast is my fav
- emddudley 3y agoAntennaPod is what I moved to. I miss having the built-in sync between devices that I had with Google Podcasts, but AntennaPod is otherwise great.
- algo_trader 3y agoDid you export your subscription or queue from GP? They promised this in Dec23. I was a late comer to podcasts, and i just liked the clean GP design.
- technick 3y agoI'm breaking up with google next year. Can't wait to be free of their crap.
- ppetty 3y agoNext year, why then? Genuinely curious what keeps you hanging on. Seems like Google’s apps and services rise and fall like the tides, so why not now.
- someotherperson 3y agoI've degoogled quite well, the only real google services I continue to voluntarily use are YouTube and Maps. Although I don't use YouTube itself, I mostly interact with it through third party apps (i.e SmartTube or Invidious) and with Maps... well... nothing comes close. I wish there was a decent competitor to Google Maps but there isn't. I tried using Apple Maps but it lacks all of the crowdsourced information that Google has access to.
- Procrastic 3y agoEven with Google Maps, I find the UX of Apple Maps to be superior. The worst part is how when you’re on a trip and move to another app and back, Google Maps will wait 5-10 secs before showing you the trip you’re literally on. Instead it prioritises the unwanted “what’s on” box. I’ll use Google Maps for reviews, and Apple Maps for everything else.
- wrycoder 3y agoIt’s hard to break away. So many businesses and nonprofits using Google calendar, drive, and online apps like sheets.
- ViktorRay 3y agoI wish someone would ask Sundar Pichai in an interview or something if he is aware of the damage that these constant shutdowns do to his company's reputation. Not because I am interested in interrogating him. But because I'm honestly curious about his thinking process. Does he know and not care? Does he not know? Either way the answer would be interesting to me.
- xnx 3y agoSpotify does music and podcasts in one app. Why should Google have two different apps for music and podcasts?
- elondaits 3y agoBecause discovery, consumption, and metadata are completely different for both mediums. Part of the reason Apple has a separate app for classical music.
- teg4n_ 3y agobecause a lot of people hate how spotify has the same app for music and podcasts
- happytoexplain 3y agoYou can do both in one, but it's difficult to get right (which is usually true of combining things into one product). E.g. when I tried it in Spotify, I couldn't find a way to return to where I was in my podcast after listening to music. Every single time I wanted to listen to my podcast after listening to any music, I had to manually scroll through hundreds of episodes until I saw the green checkmarks appear, then scroll back up slowly to find the last one I was listening to. Even if there is a feature for this, I couldn't find it on Android, which is its own UX problem. More importantly, YouTube music simply doesn't have a lot of podcasts. I started transferring my stuff over, and immediately found it was missing multiple podcasts I was listening to. Kind of a huge deal breaker.
- gainda 3y agoi like spotify for music & music discovery but trying to manage and track podcasts felt too disorganized. i like pocket casts instead.
- okdood64 3y agoThe date was announced in December already. Is there some new information here, or are we simply re-litigating Google for this decision because hating them is the thing to do now?
- alphabetting 3y agoI already had Youtube Music and their podcast integration seems better than Google Podcasts but this probably is a pain if you don't have youtube music or can't easily export followed podcasts.
- lxgr 3y agoAh yes, Youtube Music, the logical home for, hm, audio-only spoken word content. I think I'll just read, erm, sorry, Play Books instead. (But not music, because that's on Youtube now as well.)
- achrono 3y agoUntil they shut down Play Books while educating us that customers actually prefer summaries via Gemini instead of using Play Books, so actually now book purchases are being migrated to Gemini because that is such a better customer experience. It can even contextually recommend further reading... why would you not want that?
- hackerbeat 3y agoGoogle is so lost.
- codeonline 3y agoThey could at least foster some goodwill by releasing the source