> Patreon offers so many more features and user benefits that it’s not even worth comparing the two.
As someone who subscribes to numerous Patreons including those which are podcasts… Patreon is horrible from a user perspective. It’s UX makes it so I hate when I have to use it. The less I need to use it, the better.
Couple that with the god awful pod casting apps that currently exist, it’s amazing podcasting is still so strong. It’s a testament to the creators that people will wade through such horrible UX to support the people and creators they do.
> Genuine question: what's harming your experience in current podcasting apps?
Oh, where do I begin beyond just saying they are trash. I've used all the big names and each one seems like it was created with a the same basic idea in mind: show the latest episodes of a podcast, and have some form of pagination. Which is fine if that's all your podcast does and isn't meant to be listened to from the beginning.
But the moment your pod cast might have different shows or parts or otherwise intend to start at the beginning, it's suddenly hit or miss. Basically, it makes an assumption about how podcasts should work and ignores the reality of popular podcasts out there.
Not to mention some are just obtuse to use. I forget which one but I was trying to add a feed to a popular one and there was NO where to add my own feed. Spent five minutes looking and there was no way to add a URL feed. Like, that's core 101 functionality.
Like I said, I tried the popular ones and they all were annoying to use. I realize this comment doesn't help much, mostly because it was earlier this year that I tried them out and became frustrated so it's mostly me thinking through how much they sucked and not much on the specifics.
I think the best way I can think of it is they all did the bare minimum and stopped.
I use Apple's Podcast app because it's free, it syncs, and it while it sucks, I don't want to pay for something that isn't better than free.
I'm a Pocket Casts user, and see that it was one you tried.
Pocket Casts lets you select the episode order (as well as do things like group by season). I think it's pretty common to be able to add RSS feeds by putting them in the directory search field, and PC does this as well.
I've had absolutely zero problems using Pocket Casts to add custom Patreon feeds, and to listen to episodes in the other they came out.
Thanks for sharing! I've found your perspective interesting. I mostly listen to audio dramas, which are linear so I indeed didn't think about non-linear listening.
I agree that adding by URL is a must. I find other features like ability to download an episode or "Mark as played" as super useful too.
As someone who subscribes to numerous Patreons including those which are podcasts… Patreon is horrible from a user perspective. It’s UX makes it so I hate when I have to use it. The less I need to use it, the better.
Couple that with the god awful pod casting apps that currently exist, it’s amazing podcasting is still so strong. It’s a testament to the creators that people will wade through such horrible UX to support the people and creators they do.