Google Podcasts Shutting Down In 2024 For YouTube Music (9to5google.com) 22
Google Podcasts is shutting down in 2024 after YouTube Music picks up full global availability of podcasts, which is expected before the end of 2023. As 9to5Google reports, YouTube Music "will be Google's one podcasting app and service going forward." From the report: The big advantage of Google Podcasts was its simplicity and wide availability on Android (through the Google Search app). A "simple migration tool" will move your existing subscriptions from Google Podcasts. Notably, there will be the ability in YouTube Music to add podcasts via RSS feeds, "including shows not currently hosted by YouTube." Google will also provide a non-YTM export option via "OPML file of their show subscriptions" that will work with other podcast players.
On the podcaster front, YouTube will allow for RSS uploads instead of requiring a video version. The next step over the coming weeks and months will see Google "gather feedback to make the migration process from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music as simple and easy as possible." "For now, nothing is changing and fans will continue to have access to YouTube, YouTube Music and Google Podcasts," says YouTube. "We're committed to being transparent in communicating future changes with our users and podcasters and will have more to share about this process in the coming months."
On the podcaster front, YouTube will allow for RSS uploads instead of requiring a video version. The next step over the coming weeks and months will see Google "gather feedback to make the migration process from Google Podcasts to YouTube Music as simple and easy as possible." "For now, nothing is changing and fans will continue to have access to YouTube, YouTube Music and Google Podcasts," says YouTube. "We're committed to being transparent in communicating future changes with our users and podcasters and will have more to share about this process in the coming months."
YouTube Music, a shitshow no one asked for (Score:5, Informative)
For example, when my kids were toddlers Slipknot (the heavy metal band) videos were showing up in YouTube and Blippi songs were showing up in my music feed.
That minor annoyance aside, they took a service that was great and worked nicely and replaced it with a slow, buggy, kludgy service that no one likes and is still slow and buggy and weird and hard to find what you're looking for...and the recommendation algorithms really suck. I still pay because our family uses YouTube Red to avoid ads with the kids and YouTube music is included...but if it wasn't, I would definitely switch to Spotify
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All of that, plus it also didn't work with my car's Bluetooth (it plays, pauses, skips, but the list and text info doesn't work, this was fine with Google Music).
They finally added RSS subscription to Google Podcasts, it'd be nice if they kept that.
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I still miss Songza. It had excellent curated playlists. Then Google bought Songza in 2014, integrated its ideas into Google Play Music in 2016, and in 2018 announced it would be discontinued in favor of Youtube Music. It's the usual schizophrenic Google experience.
Now I'm a Youtube Premium subscriber which includes Youtube Music, but I rarely use it because its recommendations are populated with all the crap music videos I watched years ago. It doesn't have any vestige left of what used to be Songza.
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They still have the mp3s I uploaded. I was surprised they made the transition from GPM to YTM. And I know they are still mine because it's a defunct local band that has no streaming/online presence.
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ytm (Score:3)
It's straight up garbage and if the Goog were smart they'd throw it in the bin. Google Music was fine - you could use your own files locally and their selection was good if a bit limited. The UI worked well enough, but as is the gargler, they went ahead and enshittified the whole thing. And now it's even worse.
Re: ytm (Score:2)
Once I was going to listen to music that was stored in my device with Google Music, but it played a effing ad before anything. Never used since then.
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Google dropped the ball with audio. (Score:3)
When google merged music into the video experience it set back the whole audio experience.
How people consume audio is not the same as how they consume video. No pod casts I lop into the audio experience.
Now because there is a difference in experiences the integrations with devices is also different. An audio experience needs a particular serialised style interface for cars, headphones etc. Where as a video experience is an organic experience where interaction is much more important. By merging with youtube google has mangled both podcasts and music.
I've stopped many years ago consuming audio from a google property. Simply because it just was convenient or enjoyable anymore.
Was There A Net Benefit? (Score:2)
So, I'm not the biggest Google fan, granted...but did Google Podcasts have any real advantages?
I've been using either PocketCast or Antennapod, both with good success. I used to use PodcastAddict, and liked that. CastBox, MoonFM, DoggCatcher, Luminary, and Podcast Republic are a handful of entries listed on AlternativeTo.net.
Aside from being a first party application, was there anything Google offered that the others didn't?
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I tried it and it had a nice clean interface, took advantage of the android system controls well. That's about it. It didn't have AndroidAuto support (at least not for a while after launching) which seems like a MAJOR oversight for a podcast app. I use PodcastAddict instead
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Just out of curiosity, how come you moved away from Podcast Addict?
Why does anyone need this in the first place? (Score:2)
Have people forgotten how the basic internet works? Things are just files uploaded to some server somewhere, and if you have the link you can download it.
Convenience (Score:2)
The convenience of subscribing to a podcast and the app auto-downloading new releases, keeping track of which and how much you've listened to, and deleting them when complete made sense to me, which is why I switched from "manual" downloading to using the ACast app.
Of course, ACast then deprecated their app, so I had to switch to another and thereby lost all my historical data, and had to re-subscribe to everything.
So, out of all those available in the store, I chose to switch to the Google podcast app...
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People are conveniencing themselves into inconvenience.
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If you listen to so many podcasts that you can't manually do it, you're probably not retaining any of the information, and may as well have not listened to it.
People are conveniencing themselves into inconvenience.
That's a rather arrogantly broad brush. I counter that due to listening to as many podcasts as I do, having an app handle the secretarial work of automatically checking and fetching new ones when available, keeping track of what I've listened to and what I haven't, managing my playlist queue and order, and also managing retention on a podcast-to-podcast basis (for example, some news podcasts I only care about the latest episode, while others I'd want to listen to every one no matter how old. Most are somewh
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due to listening to as many podcasts as I do
gigantic quality-of-life benefit
Umm... like I said, if you "listen" to so many podcasts that you require this, then I submit that you might as well not have "listened" to those podcasts at all, because there's no way you're retaining all the information you're receiving, at least, not in any meaningful way.
Therefore, there is no quality-of-life benefit, because you have this technological baggage all for something that goes in one ear and out the other.
Work smarter, not harder.
You seem not to hear what you're saying.
Listening to as much podcasts as you do i
Just like they did with Google Play Music ! (Score:1)
I remember how nice and simple was Google Play Music, providing music in a easy and convenient format, like Spotify does, and even if it wasn't free, was allowing us to escape the heavy, disgusting, depressing and stalking user interface of YouTube.
Then, came their stupid idea of closing everything, and forcing everyone on YouTube. Since then, I always try to find others video platform for my need, and only fall back to YouTube if it is absolutely necessary.
YouTube is fine for your grand ma recipe or to fig
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Add revenue. (Score:1)