“Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to our Youtube channel”. You may have heard a sentence like that so often that you stopped really registering it. Hopefully, after reading this post, you can’t hear it that indifferently anymore.

The Online Video Universe

To state the obvious, the sentence distinguishes between where to find video and where to find audio. Have you ever wondered why the sentence is not “wherever you get your podcasts or videos”? Probably not, because it feels as a law of nature that Youtube owns the online video universe. If a teacher/artist/politician/anyone wants to publish videos online and have a some chance that people can find them and have people following them, they have little other choice than Youtube.

Youtube is not only the most popular online video player and it is not only the server where by far the largest number of videos are hosted. Youtube is also the owner of the index – the list with all the video’s you can find on Youtube. Other apps, like duckduckgo, can search this index, but only Youtube can add video’s to this index. You cannot publish a video on your own web page and make it searchable and playable on Youtube.

The Podcast Universe

The podcasting universe is very different. There are many podcast players you can choose from to find and listen to podcasts. Under the hood, each podcast player relies on one of the many available of podcast indexes, or directories, to help you find podcasts. In essence, a podcast directory is a database containing a curated list of podcast RSS feeds with some search or filter functionality.

As a little side note: Though you use it everyday, you may not know what RSS is: An RSS feed captures, for a certain web page where RSS is enabled, a signal each time new content is added to that web page. The RSS feed of a web page that regularly adds podcast episodes IS a podcast.

When you search for a podcast in your app, your app passes that search on to the podcast directory it uses, which also knows all kinds of meta data. The kind and quality of meta data differs between directories. Some may have searchable transcriptions, some may offer easier sorting of episodes and seasons. Some directories offer exclusive content or functionalities that no other directory is offering. Currently, the two most used podcast directories (not players) are those curated by Spotify and Apple.

Spotify dreams of being the Youtube of podcast

As always on the internet, big companies want to own parts of it. Spotify looks desirously at how Youtube owns the universe of online videos. How great would it be if practically all podcast content would be available in Spotify only?

Whereas Apple has largely played a responsible role keeping their influential podcast directory open and inclusive, Spotify is working hard to achieve their utterly unethical goal of owning the podcast universe. They pay podcasters to say “support us by following us on Spotify” instead of “wherever you get your podcasts”. Their directory offers meta content and payment options that only the Spotify app can use and on top of that, they offer Spotify-exclusive content. They do this all to convince you to use their app and their app only.

The more people fall for these tricks, the further they can go adding tricks. Step by step, they aim to lock the other 99% of users and podcasters in. At every step, they’ll take the small percentage of listeners and podcasters who turn their back on Spotify for granted.

The Podcast Index

But hey, it’s not too late! Thanks to some responsible companies and great activist, the podcast sphere is still largely open. Most notoriously, Adam Curry and his team have initiated the Podcast Index. This directory, which is used by many podcast apps, contains almost all podcasts that are also listed in other directories. Crucially, the Podcast Index allows anyone to add their own podcast, facilitating independent podcasts, making them find-able and follow-able in many apps. This is the way to break the hegemonic dreams of Spotify.

Same old story of the internet

This little cautionary tale about podcasts is exemplary for many other types of content on the internet. The way Youtube owns video and Spotify would love to own podcast, X owns microblogging, Substack wants to own long-form blogging, Github owns developer collaboration, Whataspp owns chatting. In essence, it’s all the same boring story: Platforms lure users and content creators into a chicken-and-egg problem, where outside the platform there are no users, because there is no content, because there are no users. Once 99% of a content niche is locked in, they start milking that cow, enshittifying their platform to the point where using it is only just bareable. Advertising, tracking, training their AI on your content, trying to lock you into further services. And the only thing they offer you is content that isn’t even theirs.

What can you do?

Some people so frantically hate this situation that they write blogposts about it. But we cannot all be activists. If you just care a bit for a better online world, you can help making it a better place by choosing your apps with a bit more care. When at the point of installing app XYZ, just take two minutes search “open alternatives to XYZ”.

For podcasts, stop using Spotify now. Switching apps is a little good deed to keep Spotify from achieving their ugly goals. The Podcast Index curates a list of podcast players you may wanna give a try. If you think “oh no, I’ll need to start my whole follow list anew”, see this as an opportunity. For me, switching apps every now and then freshens up my podcast habits and makes me discover new content. Currently, I am happy with pocket casts, but I will certainly switch. This is one of the most appealing properties of open corners of internet, such as the podcast universe (and, e.g., the Fediverse!): It allows creative developers to come up with fresh functionalities unimaginable in the musty corners dominated by Big Tech.

Enjoy and take care!