Time to get out of Google Podcasts for anyone that is still using the service.
Another day another piece of Google tech tossed in the trash
Google: Wanna see me create another great app and space then do no advertising and deep 6 it like, well whenever. wanna see it again?
they are like the bad version of valve with their IPs.
No advertising is correct, first I ever heard of this was hearing its getting cancelled
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great things
By Google? With all the fuckery that comes along with it?
Nah, I’m happy that they don’t provide more services than they already do.
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That’s not why they’re killing t though, it’s because they’re moving it to YouTube to get subscriptions.
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How long until they shut down Search? It’s been dog shit for years.
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With the announcement of Gemini you have to think Bard’s days are numbered.
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You mean the fraudulent video of things it can’t do?
Nah.
A Large Language Model AI still needs a search index like OpenAI uses Bing otherwise funky hallucinations are more likely.
Tip: just don’t use Google products
Ty I was gonna post that link lmao
I was looking for you “OMG GOOGLE IS KILLING EVERYTHING!” people. They don’t have infinite money, stuff costs money to run and if it isn’t as popular as their other services obviously they’d shut it down. People use their products for free (monetarily) for years and then bitch and complain when something gets shut down, never having paid a cent.
People use their products for free (monetarily) for years and then bitch and complain when something gets shut down, never having paid a cent.
Click on the link before commenting, and where did I give a shit about google shutting their stuff down?
I see someone like him and block him instantly, knowing I just made life better.
Scared of differing opinions I see 🤣
Yeah, some things that cost money were killed off, but that’s what happens when they try making everything. Most people have never paid a dime to Google.
Every single thing I use gets changed, ruined, shut down, canceled, moved, merged. It never ends.
Wound up giving up and using Google podcast BECAUSE other ones I used kept getting shut down.
Pocket Casts has been reliable for me for years. I don’t even use their pro features, but I pay anyway because it’s so cheap. Highly recommended.
I will never shut up about pocket casts. Their multi-device sync is wonderful. I can pick up where I left off on any episode from any of their apps. They’ve even got a pretty decent UWP app that I use on my Windows installs. They also have rock solid Chromecast support.
I loved it so much I bought the lifetime pass a long time ago. At any rate, I can’t recommend pocket casts enough!
I need to check out the lifetime pass price, thanks for reminding me!
Unfortunately, I believe they stopped offering it some time ago. :(
Awh man. Oh well, I’ll keep paying.
it seems antennapod recently got the play state sync feature using gpoddersync.
Supported!
Another great app for podcasts I can recommend is Podcast Addict. Free and it’s full of great features.
To clarify, Pocket Casts is also free. 👍 I just recommend supporting them because the pro price is so cheap.
Thank you for ideas to look into.
My pleasure!
Cheap? Unless someone snagged Pocketcasts when it was still a one off payment app, it is NOT cheap. Heck, I can pay for YouTube Premium, Spotify Premium and still have money left for one more streaming service to plug into before I hit what Pocketcasts wants me to pay. The app is good but it is the very antithesis of cheap.
Wow, that’s odd.
I’m paying 119 SEK/year for the Plus tier, which is the result of a price raise some time ago as well. But I see now that it’s 533 SEK/year all of a sudden for new customers.
Still, that’s not too expensive, honestly. If you need the features, it’s pretty good.
I don’t, so I won’t pay that amount of my account is put on that price point…
FFS Google’s killing another app I use all the time
At this rate I half expect Google Play books to be dead before 2025
I buy all my ebooks on Google Play and then export them via ACSM converter and back it up (you can only convert and exported file once)
Sounds smart might give it a go, but why not simply download epub direct from an ebooks retailer?
I’m not sure what an ACSM file is, think you could give me a TLDR?
My understanding is it is a file linked to your account that links to the epub file. It lets you and only you download your copy of the epub file you purchased.
I’ll never forgive them for killing iGoogle. I missed my start page so much…
Is there a way to download any books bought as pdfs?
I don’t believe so
I tried to figure out how to through the app but I unfortunately couldn’t find anything
Or even download them so I can view them outside of the play app?
Selfhost Audiobookshelf
I’ll have to check this out for sure as I primarily listen to audiobooks rather than reading physical books or reading ebooks
They’re just so much more convenient with my shitty work schedule
I use it, I like it and it works with zero issues. It also easily works with my Google Home speaker. So of course it gets shut down. Because obviously. Sigh.
That said, Pocket Casts on iOS is also quite decent.
Same I pivoted to PocketCasts
Pocket Casts has both an Android and iOS version. If you pay for their “subscription” their web app also works, though I’ve never used it I’ve heard good things.
That’s why I never used it, because I knew it will happen. Better to use some other solution. I wish there was a third party option to google chromecast and all the home devices that works as well.
I can’t speak for the rest of the home products, but Roku is a pretty good alternative to Chromecast
I hate that all the TCL TVs this year changed from Roku and Google this year to just Google. Give me some variety and competition. Also, I like their simpler out-of-the-box interface better with less ads and such, even though the Google TV interface is more customizable.
ROKU TV HAS ADS AS WELL?
Yes they do. Usually one big ad on the side of the screen. And they may if you use certain screen savers. I think the city scapes one puts ads in it. Note: all the ads I mention are static images without sound.
Is there any TV software without ads that works well?
Hoo BOY does Roku have ads! When I installed PiHole on my network and used it as my local DNS, the TOP blocked domain was “scribe.roku.com”. It was calling home like 5000 times a day. We were thinking every single remote push maybe.
Blocking those domains made the entire interface speed up drastically, and got rid of the giant box ads on the side as well. (It’s just a big empty frame now lol).
Rokus are nice and cheap if you can mitigate their rampant data harvesting.
Pocketcasts is great and supports Chromecast
Thanks, I know.
I just gave up and attached a small form factor PC to my TV.
Steam Deck ftw.
It is my everything. Seriously.
They say it’s crazy YouTube could end. I’m not so sure.
I don’t think they have any qualms about shutting down YouTube but I think they’re afraid of the backlash. It’s such a unique treasure trove of cultural significance that is not out of the question for the US government to step in and tell them to put at least some of it in the Library of Congress or to work with other organizations to preserve it. And they’d rather let it run than be bothered.
I’ve heard a theory that says that Google isn’t interested in any of their products for the product’s sake. They’re all data-gathering experiments. Once they’re done mining that particular kind of data they shutter the project. If they ever need to revisit that category later, they make another similar product.
It would certainly explain why they shut down certain projects in the face of commercial success, or why they keep revisiting the messenger app over and over in different ways.
It would also explain their inept attempts at monetizing YouTube. Keeping an experiment alive past it’s expiration date is unfamiliar to them so they have no idea what to do with it.
YouTube is the app around which both Google Play Music and now Podcasts are shutting down, so I doubt YouTube will go away. I won’t be surprised, however, if other apps are incorporated in like Play Movies and Play Books even.
Shitting down YouTube would be like shuttering Gmail or even Search. Seems unlikely.
Arent Play Movies already integrated in YT?
A movie and tv show I “bought” in the store are only watchable on YT.
Google shutting down youtube would be such a huge confidence loss that I don’t think they would ever recover. It’ll never happen unless things change drastically.
Thru could decide to incorporate it separately (which would be ironic considering it started out separate and they forced it into Google), and then let it find its own way.
YouTube is too big and dominates too much of certain spaces for streaming. Shutting it down would be stupid. If Google no longer wanted it, it would make WAY more sense to sell. Someone would pay billions for that.
Edit: also, YouTube made $8billion in ad sales last quarter. YouTube ain’t going anywhere right now.
Well, to be more clear, I was trying to say that YouTube could end as a business for Google. I’m not sure if YouTube is doing well right now, financially, and these whole ad management looks like a desperate move.
YouTube has recently been exceeding street expectations and made $8billion in ad sales last quarter alone. Even when revenue took a 2% dip a while back, that business is still a damn cash cow.
Yeah, I still doubt it long-term. It’s become truly annoying to watch YouTube videos without workarounds/Premium these days. Their membership is also more expensive as time goes by. I guess, as long as it is a monopoly, they may keep pushing this. Maybe it’s just me, but feels tired.
Another service that I didn’t know google even offered until they announced it was dying. There are so many sources that podcast apps can pull from that we don’t need half as many as we have.
I actually really enjoy it. It’s my go to no frills podcast app that isn’t paired with music or other extra stuff
I now use pocket cast , it’s similar with its simplistically but still different.
Podcasts are just mp3s (or whatever other audio format like ogg). Authors/pod casters should just host them on their site and be done with it. Why let some other company take a lion share of your ad profit. We need less centralized services and more distributed services. Use lemmy or mastodon to promote them. :)
There is value in aggregate discoverabilty via these sites. They also post to all of them not just one. Podcast advertising is dying across the board.
Room to give a shout out to Podverse, free and open source!
AntennaPod is another great option. I’ve already switched after the initial announcement.
Absolutely love AntennaPod
I gave AntennaPod a try and was blown away at the granular control you are allowed over everything. Its a fantastic app that set a new standard for what I look for in an other apps now.
I needed this rec, thanks.
Another one in the Google graveyard.
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Google seems to be caught in an awful feedback loop. I feel like at this point, most tech savy people are weary to try new Google services for fear of liking them, but eventually getting shutdown. In turn causing those tech savy users to not recommend it to their friends/family that actually might cause it to grow.
Honestly don’t know how they get out it without either losing tons of money on maybe side projects or happening across the one things that’s so good it’s impossible to not use. The latter seems more unlikely by the day
I’m long past attaching anything important to new google services. They’d have to pay me to use their shit.
google tries not to kill one of it’s products challenge (impossible)
Yet another Google product that goes into the grave.
virtually everything that Google developed in-house was a failure. Videos, social media, WiFi balloons, smart cities. They couldn’t even keep an RSS reader running.
How companies this incompetent became multibillion dollar monopolies is a mystery to me.
If you rewind the video a minute or two he explains that.
I didn’t watch the video. Too busy watching other videos. Sad.
Which is why I’ll never use a Google product. Well except for gmail. I don’t have a choice because of work.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/rimtaSgGz_4?t=14m36s
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I learned with Google music never get involved with Google with something you’ll want to use daily. Google music hands down was the absolute best music service I’ve ever used. Google is like a kid with ADHD bouncing around from project to project never to see them through.
I used it from the start, I got in on the beta, and while it was nice, I wouldn’t say “it was the absolute best”. IMO Spotify is just as good, in fact I’d say it’s better. It was nice that you could upload 20,000 of your own songs, but that was back before we had hundreds of gigs available on our phones.
Why do you consider it “the absolute best”?
For me it was the ability to upload my own library and stream it without a subscription, I ended up switching to plex and running my own server for a while but yeah Spotify just has the best deal with no effort so I caved to that especially with a family plan you can’t beat it.
IIRC Play Music was a paid service, it probably had a free tier with ads/commercials, but I definitely paid for it. That’s how I got grandfathered into YouTube Premium (when they launched YouTube Red as it was called it came “free” with the subscription to Play Music) and can’t go back to the free tier or deal with the various hacked clients and ad blockers. It’s been over a decade of ad-free YouTube (except for the sponsor segments everyone does now, I do use SmartTube on my Nvidia Shield to skip those).
Yeah I think at some point they started subscriptions but you were able to keep your old library from before
As a former Google Play Music user and lover, it was the recommendations. I haven’t found another service that shows me even a significant fraction of the music I like that Google did. I’ve switched to Spotify but it constantly recommends songs I’ve already heard or don’t like and the shuffle feature gives me the same ~50 songs from a large playlist. It’s something I’ve accepted but I miss the Google recommendations deeply.
Have you tried Pandora? I always thought Pandora was better at recommending music than GPM was, but it was close.
I’m the opposite, I never really used GPM’s recommendations because I knew what I liked and had tons of ripped CDs in my collection. After we all ditched MP3s and went to streaming I still stuck with what I knew. I only switched to Spotify about 2 years ago and it has opened me up to a bunch of smaller artists in Europe (I’m in the US) that I would have never found on my own. One of them (Green Lads) I’ve listened to for 2500 hours this past year thanks to their recommendations.
