Google Podcasts shutting down in 2024 for YouTube Music

Oh boy, can't wait for Youtube Mail and Youtube Maps next

Classic google. Add this to the Google app graveyard.

Never surprising to hear of yet another Google service shutting down.

google

one app

does one thing

google

why is this so hard to understand

Man, I really did like Google Podcasts.

It was way better than the other podcast apps. And coming from iTunes, it was a smooth transition.

This sucks. Open source your shit, Google, and I promise we'll keep it going.

It is both funny and sad that Google has more or less trained me to never use their apps.

At this point, I purposefully don't use them because I assume they'll soon be cancelled.

It's so wild that Google would rather weaken their own brand than just keep a secondary frontend around. It would require minimal maintenance cost (given the size of their company, just have 1-2 fulltime devs working on keeping it in shape and updated), and it could access the exact same backend as the Youtube Music app.

Weird.

And don't misunderstand me, I really don't like Google Podcasts for podcasts, but I also admit that having a separate app for podcasts is superior, as you listen to them very differently than you listen to music. Spotify amiably shows how their recommendation algorithms absolutely cannot handle someone listening to both, anyways.

I only found and started using this app a couple of months ago wouldn't have imagined it was on its way out

Typical Google

Permanently Deleted

I miss google play music. Never really liked youtube music

google discontinued something? shocking

That's just the Google way... still didn't get over the RSS reader disaster... Anyways, I tried the app a couple of times: it's not a great app for listening to podcasts. If you like podcasts, try Antennapod, Pocket Casts or Podcast Addict (and please stay away from Spotify).

In the end: good riddance.

Such a bad idea. Podcasts seek forward and interface actually worked. Zero chance the migration to YouTube is smooth.

Before you get used to YTM and they drop that too, just use AntennaPod

Spent a solid hour trying apps to switch to. Found podcast republic which does everything I want with tons of customisation and a one time payment to ditch the ads. Love it.

Sure, a video app makes much more sense for podcast delivery!

Alternative recommendations?

Goad I never jumped onboard.

Podcast Addict for the win

Man they really want me to switch to Spotify

Another killedbygoogle

I been using itfor for years realy loved the layout.

Awww for fuck's sake. Why do they always cancel the good apps???

This sucks. I use it a lot. I picked it over other apps for a reason. Don't make me change my habits!

Laaaaaaaaaaaaaame.

How hard is it to keep one brand associated with the one thing they do well? I'd understand it if you only have one brand your trying to expand, like Spotify starting to add video content. But when Google own a wide range of apps each with their own brand and identity, they really don't need to get everyone in one place like YouTube.

YouTube for me will always be about short video. When they stopped letting my buy movies on Google play, I didn't start using YouTube and just use Amazon now. When they stopped music, I didn't start to use YouTube music and stuck with Spotify. And now they are stopping Podcasts, I won't move to YouTube. I'm not that bothered but I don't see why they keep doing it, they must hemorrhage users every time and surely the value of YouTube with all these extra features etc is still less than the potential sum of the original parts.

Litetally no podcast app I've tried has a search feature a tenth as good. I use antenna pod but still kept google podcast for its search feature.

2 of the original big 4 for us podcast folks down! Stitcher what? A month ago?

I have never used it. Always used Podcast Addict for podcasts. Spotify made it all clunky

Hopefully it will be better for when it comes to Android Auto, as GPM is my go to in the car.

@fne8w2ah IMO there is little reason to use a big platform for listening to podcasts. I would recommend https://podverse.fm/ or just any old RSS reader which doesn't need any account nor is in any danger of being shut down ever.

At least from everything I've read they've thought about migration and will actually let you use RSS, I was worried they weren't going to add that functionality to youtube music

Just use AntennaPod. You don't need Google spyware to listen to podcasts.

Such a shame

Finally. That's exactly what I expected. The app hasn't been updated for years, they removed the Google podcast widget on the Google search and added a "Podcast" category to YouTube.