Google Podcasts shutting down in 2024 for YouTube Music
Google Podcasts shutting down in 2024 for YouTube Music
YouTube Music will be Google's one podcasting app and service going forward, with Google Podcasts set to go away in 2024...
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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.
They probably want to monetize on podcasts too, in the same way they do on videos and music. At the moment, Google Podcast is completely free and ad-free.
I actually don't think it's a bad decision. I think merging it with YouTube is a good thing. They could integrate tightly with YouTube since they already added a "podcast" feature and you could seemlessly switch between Video and Audio.
Sooner or later I expected that to happen.
But to a user, what would the benefit be? Would the UI also change depending on content played to expose the controls specialized for each type of media?
It combined two apps I already use. The UI of YTM is better than the podcast app anyways. Not a crazy huge benefit, but there's no detractor for me because I already use YTM heavily.
You could listen to an epsiode on YouTube then pause and listen to it on YouTube music.
Would the UI also change depending on content played to expose the controls specialized for each type of media?
They already kinda do that on YouTube (with YouTube premium). When you watch a music video, you have music controls in the normal YouTube app and a button to switch to YouTube music
Tbh, they should rather make a new app called "YouTube Podcasts)