Gotta love it when big companies buy off a popular smaller one only to gut it. I didnt use stitcher but it feels like a waste.
I was a power user back in the day, but once I started using PocketCasts, that’s all she wrote. RIP tho
PocketCasts is the absolute best! Been using it for years.
I moved to pocketcasts from castbox years ago. Best decision ever.
Parent company SiriusXM. I wish there was an offboarding process for unwanted properties besides shutting them down. Not that I used this app, but I’m sure a lot of people did.
For those people: https://podcastindex.org/apps
I used stitcher in the past, but uninstalled it soon after. I eventually moved to using Antennapod. Still using it now!
I want to throw AntennaPod out there for anyone looking for a solid android podcast app. Its FOSS as well for those that care about that sorta thing.
Sadly, I think this is the result of big content companies seeing the success of the subscription model over the advertising model – if I can get Joe Public to pay me US$5-10 a month for my stuff, I can lock them in. Converting from advertising to subscription is trivial, and there is money to be made there.
Sadly, no one can create good content just for the sake of the creation – you cannot live in modern society on your creations or reputation alone. You have to monetize them somehow, and big corporations can be a great source of that money. The alternative is to pay the creators directly, but there are only so many Patreon and other individual subscriptions I can manage at US$5+/month, on top of other bills.
For the record, I’ve never used Stitcher nor SiriusXM, so I’ve no dog in this fight.
What will happen to 99% Invisible?
Good riddance. Stitcher was a blight on podcasts, I can only hope that iHeartMedia is next.
May I ask why? I never used Stitcher but a few podcasts I listen to had premium on it. And why do you dislike IHR? Several podcasts I listen to are IHR productions. :(
For a long time Stitcher was taking public podcast feeds, adding their own advertising, and re-encoding the podcasts which reduced the audio quality and made it harder for podcasters to tell how many downloads they were getting. For iHeart it’s honestly mostly ideological for me. iHeart is what Clear Channel rebranded to and they control more of American terrestrial radio than any other company. Having listened to podcasts since 2005 I liked that they were a lot smaller scale, that they were more community oriented and diy. Yes there were networks like Maximum Fun and TWiT, but none of them were on the scale that iHeart is. There is some good stuff on their network, but like a lot of the corporations that only started getting into podcasts after Serial they have a much different view of what podcasts are and should be than I do.
That’s really scummy of Stitcher. Wow.
And I totally get the anti IHR monopoly thing!
Thank you for explaining your feelings. :)
The problem with iHeartRadio is that they own way too many radio channels
Oh, that’s too bad. I’ve been using Stitcher for years and was pretty happy with it.
What other podcast apps for Android are people using that they would recommend?
I’ve tried using Spotify previously for podcasts, but I find it frustrating since the app is primarily designed for music. It works well for music, but the podcasts experience is awkwardly grafted on and does not work well for me.
I’ve always been fond of Podcast Addict - though I wish there were other features like keeping track of how many episodes of Stuff You Should know I’ve listened to for when I switch phones / devices.
I’m also using Podcast Addict and am pretty happy with it. It has loads of features that are adjustable per podcast basis.
PocketCast has everything I need and more
I’m pretty happy with AntennaPod. It’s open source aswell
