[Podcasts] Split out podcasts into separate app

[pwilczynski]

There have been many posts about improving the UI for podcasts within the Spotify app. But the more reasonable architectural decision seems to be to use a separate app for podcasts / audiobooks. Trying to cram too much into the spotify music app is confusing; it bloats the experience and distracts the user.

As an episodic medium with repeat consumption and curation, podcasts are just very different than traditional music. In particular, once I've decided to listen to a podcast, the likelihood of me wanting to listen to music is extremely low - podcast-specific search, prioritization and discovery is much worse when mixed up with musical content. 

[tardis2]

I've been using the spotify app for years and loving it and I want to be able to listen to podcasts through the app for ease, but I will often alternate between listening to a queue of podcasts and music multiple times throughout the day. At present there is no way to switch between a music queue and a podcast queue and because of that I will never listen to podcasts through spotify. I listen to tens of hours of podcasts each week, so having a separate queue for them that doesn't interfere with my music queue is essential to me. I don't care if it's a separate app or tab, but the status quo is entirely infeasible.

[Mmolla]

This should really have more votes based on how many of the much-higher-ranked problems would be fixed by it. Maybe Spotify will take this into account as this suggestion is a stone that will elegantly kill a lot of birds.

[shoesmcgoose]

I don't want to pay for podcasts or audiobooks. At all, like ever. 

I signed up for the best music service, which give me the best recommendations for discovering new music. 

The experience now is so bloated it's insane. And the reallotments of resources is clearly affecting shuffle gauged by everyone I know complaining about it playing the same 10 songs over and over. Kinda like DJ does. 

I want a plan to just pay for music only. And a just music only experience. 

If you cannot offer that, you will lose people to those that can provide the superior music experience you used ot. 

[Prasadk907]

Dear Spotify team,

I would like to suggest a simple but effective solution which can improve the experience significantly. I like to listen to my specially curated playlists as per the sequence in which I added it, instead of random shuffles. But when I shift to podcast, the sequence of my music playlist is lost and I either have to start again or search the song I was on and play it from there. But if I get two players, one for podcasts and another for music, I can listen to podcasts without losing my sequence. This could also be implemented for multiple players, there can be various players which play something different simultaneously and the transition can be made easily.

[Amonkey9]

I understand that Spotify wants to push all its products, but the latest update to the homepage is prioritizing Podcasts. Spotifys data should know that in my ~13 years as a premium user, I have listened to less than 10 podcast episodes in total, with several of the ones I did being for a college class. Putting podcasts above music recommendations makes no sense and ruins my homepage and makes the already abysmal music discovery experience that much worse. Spotify has LOADS of our listening data and needs to do a better job at understanding that not everyone wants podcasts and that they will alienate users trying to force something onto us we just don’t want (and in my case, actively despise). Spotify is not a new startup and this level of disregard for their audience just shows that there is a huge disconnect between the users and the corporate decision makers. 

[Lodewykk]

Years later, the solution is to just not listen to podcasts on spotify. I have other apps for that. I wouldn't mind pocasts, but that's just not part of what Spotify is to me.

[AlecMac]

I would really like the option to play podcast episodes and Playlists on repeat. I listen to a lot of language learning podcasts and it would really be helpful to just put an episode on repeat so I can really focus on a single lesson until I feel confident to move on. You can put songs and any other kind of playlists on repeat but not podcasts.

[Arxareon]

I don't pay the increasingly more expansive premium to have literally half of my home page be taken up by garbage video podcats (with auto-playing previews no less) I give ZERO carrots about. I do not care for video podcats—or any kind of podcast for that matter, I'm here for music. Why can't I, a paying customer be offered the agency to decide what kind of content do I want to see on my home page?

Add an option to hide video podcats (and while we're at it a separate option for audio podcasts) immediately, or, I might have to take my money elsewhere (perhaps to a platform that cares about its artists and customers).

Also, where the h is the AI label and filter (the EU must demand it in accordance with the AI Act, does Spotify implement it before we have to get the EU to yell at them)? Haven't people pleaded enough? We do not care for AI content, I don't want to see it. Nor do we care about video podcasts, I do not want to have to see it.

[jazzmanjohn]

I totally agree with you, and the same goes for AI content. I would like to be able to totally block both.