What a sad ending to another Google endeavor that has happened so many times. Honestly, I am not surprised, as they have a track record of experimenting at the user’s expense. Killing off products that did not meet revenue expectations from a business perspective, I get it, but from a user experience, I hate it.
The loved Google Reader of the past was canceled when Google could not earn ad dollars from it as millions of people could consume content on it versus a platform they could monetize.
When Google Podcasts rolled out, I had high hopes after many years of working to help Android users find a decent Podcast app through my companies, SubscribeOnAndroid.com product, which gained a lot of traction with shows encouraging Android listeners to follow and subscribe.
We are now making sure that the product is again viable for Android users as Google has essentially created an extinction event for a percentage of Android Podcast listeners. Google has adopted a scorched earth policy and brainwashes people into thinking that YouTube is the end-all for Podcast consumption. Sure, some big shows are being discovered on their platform, but for the majority, it could be farther from the truth than anything to come out of their mouths.
Podcasters, by and large, hate the YouTube channel integration and the bevy of rules they must follow, which they do not have to follow in the traditional podcast space. The everyday challenges of being on that platform exist due to cancel culture and strict content monitoring.
Google will monetize against all your content, while the majority of podcasters will get nothing, no new audience, and indeed no money, as it’s nearly impossible to monetize through YouTube’s extensive hour-long listening rules to qualify to monetize podcasts unless you make the break and become and do a YT first strategy and put in the work to build a YT channel.
The fabled “podcast” menu item on YouTube only has a handful of successful so-called podcasts; everyone else is nowhere to be found. The average podcaster has little chance of breaking out, as we learned from Spotify. They don’t care about the podcast space. All they care about is monetizing on the back of creators.
Google Podcast, good riddance; we don’t need you anymore. Podcasters are taking back the podcasting space we created and expanding it through the Podcasting 2.0 initiative and great new apps at PodcastApps.com. We must rely on something other than gatekeepers to help the podcasting space grow and thrive. We have to do it on our own.
At the recent Podcast Movement Evolutions, YouTube presented to about 500 podcasters, and it was the most “I love me speech” I’ve heard in many years, and from the post-presentation reaction, they did not win many hearts and minds.
Meanwhile, Google Podcasts has abandoned millions of listeners and caused an extinction event, causing podcasters to lose 4% of their audience almost overnight.
We already are hearing podcasters scream bloody murder who have their heads down, as many do not follow the day-to-day news. On the one hand, it is a bad day for podcasting; on the other, we know whom we can trust to go forward.