There are tons of podcasts out there made by people with no extrinsic motivation. They aren’t looking for fame or fortune. They just like making podcasts, and do so for free. Usually Creative Commons Licensed. Yes, I am one of those people who makes a podcast that way.
The problem is you will never find our podcasts on the front pages of the directories like Apple or Spotify, but we are there if you search hard enough. If you are tired of ads, look harder.
The main point of the site isn’t that Ads are bad. It’s that too many Ads end up driving away listeners, and are therefore self-defeating. There’s an acceptable ratio of ads to content (10% airtime or less).
Also in some countries you got public radio stations producing podcasts (even podcast first formats not played on radio) - while that might Fall under subscription, while not being a subscription on anything specific.
There is, but I’ve also seen some of my favorite hobby casts either get retroactively crammed full of ads or just get taken down entirely because, no thanks to the glut of bot traffic we seem to have nowadays, hosting fees grew to be untenable for a hobby project.
I haven't listened to podcasts in years, but used to enjoy them. I would've paid for a YouTube premium-esque subscription to skip ads on all the podcasts on my podcast app of choice. I'd want the podcast to get a cut from that subscription that would make it worth it, in the same way YouTube premium makes it worth me not seeing ads.
(I use Sponsorblock on YouTube too since there are platform ads and then sponsors baked into the videos.)
Ads for protein powders, scam gold coins, Bitcoin scams, scam "doomsday" equipment ... there is a whole industry around such products for people falling for disinformation.
The only platform where I consume podcasts anymore is YouTube, because some (but not all) podcast creators will remove their embedding advertising on the YouTube release of their show, but not Spotify/Apple/etc. And, YouTube Premium gets rid of the platform ads. Lex is one show that does this. And, realistically, I've dropped any podcasts that don't even do this.
There are some podcasters that release ad-free versions on Patreon or similar platforms; but the listening experience on those platforms is so bad that while I would be fully supportive of the concept of direct payment to remove ads, the only platform that functionally supports this at this time is YouTube.
I'm not sure what features people consider important, as I've never used Spotify or other common podcast apps, but I've had a good experience getting podcasts through Patreon and then adding them to AntennaPod through their rss feed.
You don't just skip over ads? My app lets me set a skip for the pre-roll ads automatically.
I actually feel a tiny bit guilty about that. The ads are why the podcasts exist. Too many might drive away listeners, but too few drives away podcasters. I'm kinda baffled that the economy of it works at all.
For a bunch of them I pay for the ad free version, though I'm curious about the economics of that. As someone with enough money to opt out, I'm exactly the person the advertisers want to reach.
I listen to podcasts on my morning and evening commute (in my car). I can skip forward 30 seconds, or back 10 seconds with a click of a button, so I'm baffled why everyone else isn't doing the same??? As I'm not going to buy the thing that is being advertised I don't feel guilty - it's not like anyone is losing out.
I have more than once bought stuff specifically from the ads. I'm wearing some MeUndies socks, right now, and they're good. I really liked the hot sauce subscription I heard about on the ad. And because I use the code they know which podcasts brought me to them.
I was going to agree with this sentiment until I realized that I listen to a few podcasts put out by individuals who spend a lot of time producing content. For me, it is pod quality vs. how many ads.
People don't care if LLMs were involved if the output is good. If you are just using it to create bottom of the barrel slop like this is when it's a problem.
Ads again, I would guess. RSS feeds maybe don’t monetize as well because you can’t load a simple MP3 file up with trackers to verify that you are, e.g., not fast forwarding through the ads. Or make the ads unskippable. That sort of thing.
I can understand supporting a podcast by having the host read ads themselves, but dynamically inserted ads in audio podcasts are the worst. If you don't live in the USA, the number of advertisers is limited, so you end up with 1 to 3 different ads (mostly for other podcasts!) playing over and over on every episode for weeks, it's infuriating.
For making such bold claims in a supposedly data-driven way the data is very flimsy and badly cited. The citations are not even discoverable via the stated names and contents possibly hallucinated.
If this were an undergrad essay it would be failed.
well technically peertube exists & I feel like there must be some easy way of deployment of them as well from what I can think of.
also am not familiar but I think that a lemmy community can be created with podcasts where people can share their podcasts or a mastodon/pixelfed community too.
federated options exists but the people there just don't exist or try to use it in this way.
Maybe a federated instance about podcasting (and a domain name related to it) can be established to become a de-facto (maybe non profit/donation running service) too.
I think that it could scale really a lot on OVH dedicated servers or Hetzner auction boxes and run on quite a substantially few amount of dollars for the infra that the google/youtube monopolistic power can go away.
We know the answer to this because we’ve seen it. 20 years ago very very few podcasters were trying to monetize. The current ad infrastructure didn’t exist yet. Patreon didn’t exist yet. If people did anything they just had a PayPal donation link on the website.
It was smaller, but far from dead. More of a grassroots hobbyist phenomenon. Production quality was lower, but in some respects content quality was better because nerds nerding out without worrying about whether whatever they’re doing will attract enough listeners meant there was an incredible diversity of voices, perspectives and subject matter.
20 years ago the entire Internet was "nerds nerding out". The world has moved on, and to return to that is to return to an Internet where only people who are already economically comfortable and with a lot of spare time to boot are allowed to have a voice.
Serious podcasters need to treat it like a full time job, so they need to get their income from somewhere.
There are tons of podcasts out there made by people with no extrinsic motivation. They aren’t looking for fame or fortune. They just like making podcasts, and do so for free. Usually Creative Commons Licensed. Yes, I am one of those people who makes a podcast that way.
The problem is you will never find our podcasts on the front pages of the directories like Apple or Spotify, but we are there if you search hard enough. If you are tired of ads, look harder.
Podcasts (and all other content) are supported one of three ways:
- Ads
- Subs
- Leadgen for some other business
You get to pick your own poison.
The main point of the site isn’t that Ads are bad. It’s that too many Ads end up driving away listeners, and are therefore self-defeating. There’s an acceptable ratio of ads to content (10% airtime or less).
That’s a great point, and I’ll respond to that right after a word from this post’s sponsor: SpamCo.
There is a set of hobby casts in small niches.
Also in some countries you got public radio stations producing podcasts (even podcast first formats not played on radio) - while that might Fall under subscription, while not being a subscription on anything specific.
There is, but I’ve also seen some of my favorite hobby casts either get retroactively crammed full of ads or just get taken down entirely because, no thanks to the glut of bot traffic we seem to have nowadays, hosting fees grew to be untenable for a hobby project.
Yes, we have numerous fantastic podcasts in France, from the national radios (ads-free).
The coverage of topics is very good in some areas (non-tech) and so so in tech
You are right, there is a fourth category of public service/taxation.
I haven't listened to podcasts in years, but used to enjoy them. I would've paid for a YouTube premium-esque subscription to skip ads on all the podcasts on my podcast app of choice. I'd want the podcast to get a cut from that subscription that would make it worth it, in the same way YouTube premium makes it worth me not seeing ads.
(I use Sponsorblock on YouTube too since there are platform ads and then sponsors baked into the videos.)
What are the ones spreading blatant disinfornation financed by?
state sponsored and "wealthy benefactor" are definitely two more sources
MyPillow
Don Jr has one too, how would we classify that one?
Ads for protein powders, scam gold coins, Bitcoin scams, scam "doomsday" equipment ... there is a whole industry around such products for people falling for disinformation.
And by foreign state actors.
Don’t forget extremely expensive vitamins!
Using a VPN I get ads in languages I don't understand, makes them much more bearable when I'm not in a position to tap the skip ahead icon.
The only platform where I consume podcasts anymore is YouTube, because some (but not all) podcast creators will remove their embedding advertising on the YouTube release of their show, but not Spotify/Apple/etc. And, YouTube Premium gets rid of the platform ads. Lex is one show that does this. And, realistically, I've dropped any podcasts that don't even do this.
There are some podcasters that release ad-free versions on Patreon or similar platforms; but the listening experience on those platforms is so bad that while I would be fully supportive of the concept of direct payment to remove ads, the only platform that functionally supports this at this time is YouTube.
I'm not sure what features people consider important, as I've never used Spotify or other common podcast apps, but I've had a good experience getting podcasts through Patreon and then adding them to AntennaPod through their rss feed.
You don't just skip over ads? My app lets me set a skip for the pre-roll ads automatically.
I actually feel a tiny bit guilty about that. The ads are why the podcasts exist. Too many might drive away listeners, but too few drives away podcasters. I'm kinda baffled that the economy of it works at all.
For a bunch of them I pay for the ad free version, though I'm curious about the economics of that. As someone with enough money to opt out, I'm exactly the person the advertisers want to reach.
I listen to podcasts on my morning and evening commute (in my car). I can skip forward 30 seconds, or back 10 seconds with a click of a button, so I'm baffled why everyone else isn't doing the same??? As I'm not going to buy the thing that is being advertised I don't feel guilty - it's not like anyone is losing out.
I have more than once bought stuff specifically from the ads. I'm wearing some MeUndies socks, right now, and they're good. I really liked the hot sauce subscription I heard about on the ad. And because I use the code they know which podcasts brought me to them.
Companies target more than just people with the most money. Walmart and Rolex for example target different customers with different priorities.
So even if you completely lost the top 5% or even 20% of incomes, what remains is plenty valuable to many companies.
I wish this was written by hand and not created by an algorithm that recycled cliches and presented single data points as decisive. But...it's 2026?
You're absolutely right.
I wish they'd at least use something other than ChatGPT. Its "voice" is absolutely grating.
I was going to agree with this sentiment until I realized that I listen to a few podcasts put out by individuals who spend a lot of time producing content. For me, it is pod quality vs. how many ads.
There are a substantial amount of LLM shibboleths in both the page design and text content.
When are you people going to realize the world has moved on. People use LLMs now. Get over it?
People don't care if LLMs were involved if the output is good. If you are just using it to create bottom of the barrel slop like this is when it's a problem.
I just wish I could still download all podcasts without needing an Apple or Google account to do so.
What happened to podcast RSS feeds? Many are still available but it certainly isn't universal like in the past.
Ads again, I would guess. RSS feeds maybe don’t monetize as well because you can’t load a simple MP3 file up with trackers to verify that you are, e.g., not fast forwarding through the ads. Or make the ads unskippable. That sort of thing.
I can understand supporting a podcast by having the host read ads themselves, but dynamically inserted ads in audio podcasts are the worst. If you don't live in the USA, the number of advertisers is limited, so you end up with 1 to 3 different ads (mostly for other podcasts!) playing over and over on every episode for weeks, it's infuriating.
AI slop, or on a quality level with it.
For making such bold claims in a supposedly data-driven way the data is very flimsy and badly cited. The citations are not even discoverable via the stated names and contents possibly hallucinated.
If this were an undergrad essay it would be failed.
> YouTube now dominates podcast discovery.
This may be the part I like least. YouTube, and thus Google, have way too much power.
well technically peertube exists & I feel like there must be some easy way of deployment of them as well from what I can think of.
also am not familiar but I think that a lemmy community can be created with podcasts where people can share their podcasts or a mastodon/pixelfed community too.
federated options exists but the people there just don't exist or try to use it in this way.
Maybe a federated instance about podcasting (and a domain name related to it) can be established to become a de-facto (maybe non profit/donation running service) too.
I think that it could scale really a lot on OVH dedicated servers or Hetzner auction boxes and run on quite a substantially few amount of dollars for the infra that the google/youtube monopolistic power can go away.
And how dead would podcasts be if the creators couldn't be paid for their work?
We know the answer to this because we’ve seen it. 20 years ago very very few podcasters were trying to monetize. The current ad infrastructure didn’t exist yet. Patreon didn’t exist yet. If people did anything they just had a PayPal donation link on the website.
It was smaller, but far from dead. More of a grassroots hobbyist phenomenon. Production quality was lower, but in some respects content quality was better because nerds nerding out without worrying about whether whatever they’re doing will attract enough listeners meant there was an incredible diversity of voices, perspectives and subject matter.
20 years ago the entire Internet was "nerds nerding out". The world has moved on, and to return to that is to return to an Internet where only people who are already economically comfortable and with a lot of spare time to boot are allowed to have a voice.
Serious podcasters need to treat it like a full time job, so they need to get their income from somewhere.
Is anyone surprised that advertisers damage yet another thing they touch?