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Show HN: I built a podcast app that skips over the ads

124 points by adskipprod 7y ago

cryptozeus 7y ago
So get the free content without giving the content provider money or any opportunity to monetize via ads ? And expect that they will give quality content forever ?
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  I would rather be able to get paid content without giving the content provider money or any opportunity to monetize via ads, but that doesn't seem to be an option.
  - cryptozeus 7y ago
    I think this works in idea but not sustainable for provider. May be if there is a way to get both...choose free or pay for add free. Some of the major podcasters tried going paid route and reversed back to ad based model. i.e. tim ferriss
dickjocke 7y ago
Very cool idea, I'm curious about how this was built and works. I'm also curious if you think you'll face any challenges or if Apple will allow this to live on the play store?
- adskipprod 7y ago
  I can't tell how it works, because I don't want to create competitors. I don't see why Apple would have a problem with it. Their own "Podcasts" app lets you skip ads. This app finds the ads and skips automatically.
  - dickjocke 7y ago
    Lmao, because you are draining their platform's content creators of value?
danShumway 7y ago
Pure curiosity, is this based off of Adblock Radio? https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio I've been curious for a while how hard it would be to proxy my podcast feeds through a local server that stripped ads. As far as I can tell, this stuff has to be done dynamically per-file -- sharing timestamps don't work because ads are dynamically injected during each download.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  It's not using Adblock Radio, though that is an interesting idea. All new technology.
  - dest 7y ago
    Creator of Adblock Radio here. If some day you are able to share your approach to filter ads, especially native ones, I would greatly appreciate it.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      Their homepage shows you the few podcasts they support which suggests some sort of manual pattern recognition per channel. It's clearly not a general solution like adblockradio.
      - psalminen 7y ago
        Yeah, looking at the list I know 99pi and Reply-all play special music at the beginning of their ads.
bberenberg 7y ago
I was thinking about making exactly this today while listening to 99PI. Decided that I would rather support the makers. I wish that the various apps allowed subscriptions to avoid ads in a given podcast. 99PI is doing a fundraising drive right now. As part of it, they share that 1/10,000 listeners donates. I would be happy to pay 99PI $1 a month for their podcasts if I could skip ads.
- tw1010 7y ago
  If the advertisers can't tell if you're using this app or a traditional podcast app, are you really supporting the makers any less by using this app? The advertisers won't pay them any less because they won't be able to know that x% of users didn't hear the ad.
  - bberenberg 7y ago
    ️ Good question. I see it as a moral/ethical line more than a technical one.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    That's how we're going to end up with tracking in podcasts :(
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - jldugger 7y ago
    Who says they can't? The user agent used to download the podcast is a pretty strong signal, and it seems reasonable for podcasters to expose this data if it means higher bids on ads.
    - sneak 7y ago
      Seems like ad skipping players should identify exactly as non-ad skipping players, then.
    - epicide 7y ago
TomWhitwell 7y ago
Next you could make an app that lets you go into small independent stores and shoplift things without getting caught.
- joshschreuder 7y ago
  You wouldn't download a car.
  - maxaf 7y ago
    But plenty of people would download a mobile app that would unlock someone else's car for a free joyride.
    - salamander014 7y ago
      Turo.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  well that would be illegal... there is nothing illegal about me seeking past a portion of my podcast or taking out my headphones for X amount of seconds.
  - tantalor 7y ago
    > seeking past a portion, taking out my headphones That's not what this app does.
    - nickthegreek 7y ago
      According to the landing page, that is exactly what it does. "When AdSkipPro gets to the ads that were found above, it skips over and keeps on playing. The ads are still in there, and in fact you can go back and hear them if you like. This example shows AdSkipPro jumping from 23:49 to 25:09, past several ads:"
AndrewWarner 7y ago
As a podcaster (Mixergy.com), I love this. My listeners should never feel guilty about skipping ads. If my ads aren't interesting or don't improve your life, you owe it to yourself to skip. I keep working to improve my ads. Most recently: I hired a copywriter (Neville Medhora) to go over my ad reads. And today I recorded interviews with 10-second ads, instead of 3-minute ones.
- tantalor 7y ago
  If your listeners use this app they won't know whether the ads are interesting.
- WiseWeasel 7y ago
  If you read off your own ads live rather than playing recordings, there’s a good chance this app wouldn’t be able to differentiate them from your content in order to skip them automatically. I’d also expect listeners to be much less likely to mind, since it would be such a nicer experience than the norm.
- TurkishPoptart 7y ago
  How did you find your copywriter? Just curious.
- throwGuardian 7y ago
  But Andrew, they don't care if you put effort in to curate ads that your listeners might find valuable, they just want to skip the ads regardless. They want you to keep working your tail off, and entertaining them for free - they are apparently entitled to it.
rahuldottech 7y ago
Cool idea? Yes. Good idea? No. If we do stuff like this, the podcast industry will switch to a closed system which would require you to install proprietary apps to listen to stuff. Likely several different apps for different shows and companies. As it exists today, it's a very open system, with publicly accessible feeds and the ability to use any app. Don't ruin it. It's not hard to press the "skip forward 30 seconds" button when an ad starts playing. Edit: also, it's super unethical to have a paid app that profits by taking away any scope for content creators to monetize. Leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Didn't realise it was a paid app at first. Shame on you, OP.
- Akababa 7y ago
  You could say the same thing about adblockers in general. It's unfortunately pushed more content creators to put up paywalls and move to subscription-based models. The smart thing to do with apps like this is to keep it to yourself, but inevitably someone will release one for the masses.
  - rahuldottech 7y ago
    Yeah, but ads on the web have lots of issues like tracking and malicious code injection, so blocking them makes total sense. A lot fewer people would be using ad blockers in browsers if web ads were as simple as podcast ads (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links) .
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      > (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links) You could also have dynamic images thank to GIFs. Just think of the possibilities that would be enabled by that - "Hit the monkey!", "Shoot the gangster!" - An incredibly effective way to drive engagement.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  That's Luminary's business model, as far as I can tell.
sevkih 7y ago
da wut??? apple actually allowed this?
- sigjuice 7y ago
  Why wouldn’t they allow it? What rules are being broken by this app?
vsskanth 7y ago
Personally, I'm OK with ads in podcasts. They are based on the general audience for the show and doesn't have any intrusive tracking or personalization. If I'm really tired of the ad I can just skip ahead 30 seconds.
saagarjha 7y ago
I find it interesting that their terms of use attempts to place restrictions on linking to their homepage: https://adskippro.com/terms.html https://adskippro.com/terms.html I also find it interesting that this is in the terms, when their app is $1.99: > To the extent that the app and the information and services on the app are provided free of charge, we will not be liable for any loss or damage of any nature.
- conroy 7y ago
  My guess is that they're using a boilerplate ToS, as the app looks relatively new.
  - roywiggins 7y ago
    It's a bit mad to put up a ToS that your users are nominally expected to follow when you clearly haven't read it yourself...
- adskipprod 7y ago
  It's boilerplate - I'll update it.
abhisuri97 7y ago
So how does it really do the skipping feature? Do you transcribe the podcast and look for standard advertising copy for companies like Squarespace, hello fresh, etc? Would it register a false positive if one of those company names is said?
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Most podcasts, have a particular jingle/tune that plays before/during the ad, which should not be difficult to identify with some clever code. But honestly manual flagging wouldn't be too hard either.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  Well, I couldn't tell because I wouldn't want to create competitors! I don't think it will ever register a false positive. It's really that good.
corodra 7y ago
I'm going to have to agree with this is not a "good" idea. ~95% of podcasters are just small team folks. They make a bit of money on the side with it or just barely make enough to do it full time. I've always been willing to listen to the ads done by creators on both youtube (Not the yt ads, the ones creators do little skits or do a speech that benefits them directly) and podcasts. It supports the content and most of the money goes to create more stuff I actually like to watch/listen to.
ortusdux 7y ago
I'm still shocked that Google has not made a podcast platform wherein they manage the ads and subscriptions. Host the audio, inject ads at the breaks, allow paid subscriptions that remove the ads, have a monthly payment option, etc. Basically half YouTube half Audible. I do listen to one podcast that has an ad-free feed for patreon supporters. It works rather well and they have add a surprising amount of bonus content for subscribers.
- komali2 7y ago
  I don't trust Google to make a product of that quality or usefulness. They already had a superior product to competition, in my opinion: Google Play Music, better than Spotify. Better UI, didn't crash, better app, more reliable casting, etc. But they're closing it and making you switch to Youtube Music. Under the hood, they won't register new agencies for submitting to Google Play Music. Current ones can so you'll still see new music, but the point is they're pushing everyone to probably the worst music playing app I've ever seen in my life. So, if they were going to do it, they'd do it on Youtube Music, but that app is hot garbage, so, don't expect too high.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  How is the ad-free feed hosted? I'd love for this to be a widespread thing, but I listen to podcasts almost entirely during long drives, so I worry that paid content will fragment distribution.
  - ortusdux 7y ago
    https://www.patreon.com/law https://www.patreon.com/law You get a unique RSS feed for the commercial free episodes and bonus content.
- DataGata 7y ago
  "YouListen"
danpalmer 7y ago
I block ads on the web because web advertising networks proved that they had no respect for user privacy, lacked security controls around their ad delivery, and were targeting using data that they probably shouldn’t have had access to. Podcasts do not suffer from this. It’s much harder to identify a user, the ads aren’t software, just audio, so security is better and there’s not much way to see who is listening to the ads other than voucher codes/referral links (which are inherently opt-in). Yes I can always skip ads. Do I feel any security or privacy need to automate doing this? No. If/when podcast advertising goes the way of web advertising, then there will be an eager market for this product, but until then let’s enjoy unobtrusive, respectful ads from hosts we trust, with targeting done broadly by podcast rather than personally identifiable information.
- chrisfosterelli 7y ago
  Yeah podcasts are one of the few domains I don't find ads intrusive and can't be bothered to care to skip them. Often I find they are more useful and better targeted than web ads, I might not go as far as saying I'm interested in hearing them but it never feels "in the way" of the content I want.
- theluketaylor 7y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I block ads on the web due to the invasive tracking and targeting. I'm not opposed to ethical, reasonable ad space which is why I don't tear ad pages out of magazines when they arrive. If news sites would run their ad infrastructure focused on presentment rather than tracking I would grant them an exception to my ad blocker. While they outsource ad space to adtech and use their platform as a method to execute arbitrary code on my computing devices the block stays up. Podcast ads tend to be non-intrusive, are much harder to track and are non-executable. I listen to some very niche podcasts and am happy for the hosts to receive compensation for their creation, especially since it doesn't come at the expense of my privacy.
- hoistbypetard 7y ago
  I agree. On the web, I've actually stopped using a real ad blocker over the past few years and just use EFF's privacy badger. That only sets out to block tracking, but coincidentally enough it effectively blocks most nuisance ads. With podcast ads that are just inlined in the audio stream and based only on content, not user tracking, I'm perfectly happy to either listen to them if they're interesting or tap the 30 second skip button if they're not. (I probably only bother fishing my phone out to tap the 30 second skip button 15% of the time. They're more frequently interesting me enough for me to do a web search for the company that's advertised.)
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mariopepper 7y ago
Looks like a pretty good idea
goldcd 7y ago
I came here to judge - but if there's no way of paying for the adverts to go away (stitcher? maybe spotify (I pay, but don't use it for podcasts)) I have sympathy. Skeptoid did offer a nice/hacky/old-school solution likely to work with your favourite player - subscribe manually with ~ http://<username>:<password>@<site.com/ad_free_url/>podcasts.xml http://<username>:<password>@<site.com/ad_free_url/>podcasts... Providing your player lets you put in a URL - it "works" and doesn't require you switching your client. I do wish there was a slightly more formalized process letting you provide credentials to your app and it sorting this all out for you - but then I'm reluctant to engage in a movement that might f'up the XML+MP3 standards approach that's allowed podcasts to flourish.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  > I do wish there was a slightly more formalized process letting you provide credentials to your app and it sorting this all out for you There is. The app I use, AntennaPod, allows you to specify a username and password for each podcast feed, and iirc, it uses those for good ol' HTTP authentication.
- mmahemoff 7y ago
  This is quite common - many podcast apps, if not the very biggest ones, support feed importing and those feeds can include a username and password. It's really not that complicated, it just looks like a long URL and in most cases you can click on it in an email or website on your phone, and add it directly to the podcast app from there. The hard part at the moment is the friction from your podcast app to paying to "unlock" that feed to importing it back to your podcast app. Some of us are working on a standard called PodPass (https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/08/podpass-wants-to-build-the-identity-layer-for-podcasting-before-some-big-tech-company-does-it-first/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/08/podpass-wants-to-build-the...) to make it seamless, but without the walled gardens.
  - goldcd 7y ago
    Yep - that's the vague amorphous idea I had rattling around my head, just described by somebody who knows what they're doing. As stated - it's getting the initial adoption going that's problematic. Probably pointing out the obvious, but NPR bought my favourite client Pocket Casts. At naive glance, looks like a good fit. NPR already has an excellent group of people who've donated (so whole bunch of people paying already) and with this would give them a way of rewarding them with the adverts removed. Plus think both sides of this would be advocates for still allowing the output to be available widely, and not walled up somewhere.
nkrisc 7y ago
The best way to skip ads in podcasts is to not listen to the podcasts if you don't like the ads. Or, you know, pay the creators.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  OK, but do you read every ad on every web page you visit?
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    Consciously? No. Subconsciously I probably scan them as I look around the page which can trigger further investigation. Did you pay full attention to every ad you listened to in a podcast? I don't even know what your point is. Full disclosure, I use ad blockers online (but whitelist sites and subscribe to others). The reason I do so is first and foremost for security reasons. Ad networks deliver malware, despite their best efforts. They also deliver battery-draining ads and bloat. I'm not inherently opposed to advertising, however. Last I checked, listening to ads in podcasts is not going to give your phone malware or spin up your CPU 100% so I don't really see the point of blocking them. As far as advertising goes, podcast ads are pretty benign. Sure, you can do it and I'm not even going to call you a bad person, but it just seems like the wrong battle to be fighting. Either it never takes off and the whole thing is moot, or it really takes off and forces podcast creators to monetize in ways that are less benign. No real gain.
sneak 7y ago
Ads are terrible regardless of whether they are “nice, inoffensive privacy protecting ads” or “unethical spyware web ad network ads”. This is a great tool and saves people their only truly nonrenewable resource: time. Thank you for making it; if I listened to any of these podcasts I would be using it. Always block everyone’s ads.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  Thank you. Which podcasts do you listen to?
  - PascLeRasc 7y ago
    If you value your podcasters' livelihoods, don't tell him.
  - sneak 7y ago
    The Bunker New York http://thebunkerny.com/podcasts http://thebunkerny.com/podcasts Mysteries of The Deep https://m.soundcloud.com/mysteriesofthedeep/sets/mysteries https://m.soundcloud.com/mysteriesofthedeep/sets/mysteries The latter is even in alac-m4a lossless, something that surprised and delighted me. One is run by a friend and the other is run by a friend of friends. They’re both truly excellent. Neither have ads.
post_break 7y ago
I think it's funny the outrage over ad skipping podcasts, but keeping browser ad-blockers installed is ok. I mean there is only so many times I can hear the same casper, generic vpn, eero, ad and not want to pull my hair out. Especially when the podcast boasts about how they use the product and how it's not like anything they've ever tried before.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  > but keeping browser ad-blockers installed is ok. That's because web ads track you, can inject malicious code, and are obtrusive. As I said elsewhere in the thread, a lot fewer people would be using ad blockers in browsers if web ads were as simple as podcast ads (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links).
  - post_break 7y ago
    If you bought a DVR and recorded a TV show would you want the one with the commercial break skipper feature?
    - adskipprod 7y ago
      I sure would :)
aloukissas 7y ago
Amazing! Was meaning to build something like this for a while, glad you beat me to it! Re: monetization/ethics/etc -- would 100% support podcasts that follow the Brave model with opt-in for ads or pay if you want ad-free experience.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  I agree - thank you!
  - aloukissas 7y ago
    Just realized this is iOS-only. Any chance you've built this on react-native (which will make it trivial to port to Android)?
    - adskipprod 7y ago
      Not react-native, and the port to Android will not be trivial.
fenwick67 7y ago
Can't wait for old-timey radio product placement in my podcasts. "The party enters the wizard's keep. It smells fresh and clean, like it was recently cleaned with Febreeze, which the wizard uses for all his odor-destroying needs."
president 7y ago
You're getting a lot of hate for it but congrats on the release. Can you comment on how you are identifying ad content?
- freeplay 7y ago
  Doubtful. I'm interested in that as well. If I were making it, I would listen for keywords (ex: Cash App, Onit, MyBookie.com, Manscaping, Dollar Shave Club) that could be updated like an AdBlock filter list. Combine that with obvious changes in inflection, notable differences in the waveform, etc. I would also assume my implementation would cut the podcast down to about 4 minutes with all the false positives.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  I see it as a meaningful discussion, not necessarily hate, but I see your point! I can't tell how it works, just that it is pretty cool!
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throwGuardian 7y ago
This is why we can't have nice things. Podcasts rely on advertising for revenue, and given the static nature of pre-recorded ads, they are the least intrusive in this era of AI driven hyper real-time ad-targeting. Reminiscent of print ads on newspapers. So respect the effort of the creator and stop automating ad skipping. Heck, I even implore you to listen to the ads that make your favorite shows available for free, but you always have the skip-ahead button in your player
- criddell 7y ago
  NPR inserts targeted ads when you download an episode.
  - slenk 7y ago
    Isn't it only geo-based though? Of the IP you are downloading from? Fine. Do that. That is still very unobtrusive
    - criddell 7y ago
      It isn't clear exactly what they are doing nor have they said what their plans are. I think NPR bought Pocket Casts and I doubt they spent all that money with no plans for a return on that investment.
      - slenk 7y ago
        I fear more and more podcasts are going to start locking you into a podcast app. It's turning into the video streaming scene
        criddell 7y ago
        I think that's exactly what some of these companies think they are building - Netflix for podcasts. Unfortunately for them, there isn't a lot of value in podcasts for most people and I can't see that changing.
butz 7y ago
Podcasters should probably provide ad-less versions of podcasts for subscribing users, e.g. using Coil or similar extension for monetization.
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Nextgrid 7y ago
To the people saying this is morally wrong, let me give you a different perspective: I watch a lot of YouTube videos and they are ad-supported (although I do support them on Patreon whenever possible). The ads are for the likes of SquareSpace, Skillshare, etc (there's also lots of shit like VPN providers but let's focus on the good ones first). I'm already aware of these brands, I even recommend one of them to clients. At this point, the ads aren't telling me anything new, don't make me aware of a new product, they are just annoying and waste my time. Is it still wrong to block these ads?
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  As I've said elsewhere in the thread, it's okay to manually skip ads, because some percentage of the users will still listen to the ad, especially if it's the first time they're hearing it. If you implement automatic ad blockers, that guarantees that no one is listening to the ad. Which would mean no revenue for the content creators. Which would lead to a really crappy system.
- bearcobra 7y ago
  It would be interesting if a service existed where you could mark ads as "watched" to stop seeing them anymore. On the other hand, advertisers seem to believe they need to keep advertising to consumers who already know their products. Coke spends something like $5 billion/year on ads despite probably being the most recognized company on the planet.
mumblemumble 7y ago
A good percentage of the ad-supported podcasts I listen to also have an ad-free feed for their Patreon subscribers. I'd say look there first if you're looking to spend money to avoid ads. We messed this up 20 years ago when online print media tried doing the same, and the result has been an endless and wasteful arms race. Let's not mess this up again.
- criddell 7y ago
  The arms race is inevitable. Podcast companies haven't been receiving investments because of that sweet SquareSpace money. They want to track everything there is about how a podcast is listened to and by whom and then monetize that every way they can.
  - mumblemumble 7y ago
    Right now, they're a long way from doing sophisiticated tracking. My podcast app just downloads an mp3 file from a feed; it's not executing any JavaScript, or otherwise doing anything they can use to do the kind of tracking that happens on the Web. That regime has been stable for decades, and I can't imagine it will change unless something changes to make it stop working for podcasters. Because moving their distribution channel from RSS to some sort of closed app risks alienating their audience.
    - criddell 7y ago
      Some of the big podcast apps have recently been sold and it only makes sense that they plan on adding telemetry. The MP3 file might not change, but there's a chance that they are going to start watching you play it. A lot of investments have been made in the podcast world recently and VCs usually don't make things better.
rosybox 7y ago
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
spike021 7y ago
Seems odd... Most podcasts are pretty grassroots without financial backing, I think. I don't really mind the ads, and most podcasts apps seem to have skip buttons anyway. I mostly use the iOS podcast app, but it has a 30 second skip button. That usually gets me right past the ads.
tus88 7y ago
I think people are making too big a deal out of this. Popular podcasters do make money through Patreon for example, not everything comes down to advertising. And for frank, honest commentary, I think I would rather not have advertiser influence over podcasts, just like the news. And many people do podcasts just out of passion or a hobby...they are more like blogs than anything else.
- pembrook 7y ago
  >I think I would rather not have advertiser influence over podcasts So you're willing to pay the creators instead? >many people do podcasts just out of passion or a hobby...they are more like blogs than anything else ...ahhh I guess not. Nevermind then. Ads it is!
  - tus88 7y ago
    I am not a huge podcast listener, but I understand some of the most supported people on Patreon are podcasters. I also use Patreon, however I support YouTubers as I find videos much more engaging than podcasts. So in general yes, I am willing to pay creators through platforms like Patreon, as I guess millions of people are.
adskipprod 7y ago
Founder here: I think that many people already skip the ads using the 30 second skip forward button. I know I did before building this app. I'm also thinking about safety -- people driving their car and reaching for their phone to skip the ads.
- iamdbtoo 7y ago
  The biggest issue here for me is that you're charging for this app. You're basically asking me to pay you for your hard work of removing ads from someone else's hard work of creating content.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    You're welcome to pay someone else making the content, aren't you? And then throw this developer another $1.99 so that the other creator doesn't have to put in more hard work to make a special ad-free stream for you.
    - bilekas 7y ago
      I would happily pay some of the non spotify / subscription based podcasts I enjoy, infact I do through patreon etc. If the content provider offers it, and I want to give it, cool. But paying for this, has nothing to do with the provider.. At all actually. All money goes to someone who filtered out Adverts, if you wanna have a better argument you could say : can't anyone do this: And yes, but its the time and effort that goes into it, maybe release it open source and free so others can build a network of methods to remove more ads and even support the content provider without them needing to invest in a 'special ad-free' streaming service. Nobody is telling you not to use this, just their own reasons for not.
  - adskipprod 7y ago
    It's not removing the ads. The ads are still in there. It skips over them. I think that many people are already pressing the 30 second forward button to skip. This app skips for you automatically, at exactly the right place. It saves the user from having to do it manually.
bilekas 7y ago
Edit your title : "I built and app that skips over other peoples add and puts mine in"
- adskipprod 7y ago
  Perhaps you misunderstood what the app does?
  - bilekas 7y ago
    I'm really happy you respond to the harsh criticism given, but do you think its cool to say : "Hey, no adds in this paid app........ But the money doesn't go to the guy who made the content" I get why you might have done it, hey a nice adblock feature. But you are asking for money for it.. Did I miss something ?
bwb 7y ago
I think this is wrong morally.
kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
And now suddenly (looking at a lot of the comments here) ad-blocking is about privacy? I simply don't want to see/hear crap, period.
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  "I want people to spend the equivalent of a full-time job researching content, writing shows, organizing guest appearances, producing high-quality audio, and marketing/distributing it to me. I'm prepared to pay exactly $0 for this, and I can't not be entertained for a 30-second sponsor spot."
  - kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
    The absence of content while the ad plays is obviously not the issue. It's the presence of other, malicious content.
    - PascLeRasc 7y ago
      What's the current state of the art on embedding malware in audio files?
  - ads-always-suck 7y ago
    Well boo-hoo then, they can get a real day job instead. The hardcore hobbyists will continue to podcast without ads /and do it for FREE!/ All that will be lost are the money grubbers willing to podcast anything in order to grub more grubbies. I often find "ad supported" to be inferior to "doing it for FREE" as the former does things (anything) for the money while the latter does it for the passion of doing it. "Ad supported" will always be a cancer on the true art of doing anything! If only ad income was taxed rather than 40-hour wage income, the country would be a more beautiful place...
- adskipprod 7y ago
  You are the perfect customer for this app. $1.99 :)
mersenne 7y ago
Would you mind sharing what approach did you use to trim the ads? Did you manually detect the ads and then trimmed the file or are you using an automatic (perhaps ML-based) approach?
- adskipprod 7y ago
  The only thing I can share is that it does not modify or trim the podcast. It downloads the podcast, finds the ads, plays it, and skips over the ads. The ads are still in there. After it skips the ads, you could manually skip backwards and hear that they are still there.
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quadrangle 7y ago
The big picture is that podcasts are economically public goods (non-rivalrous, non-exclusive), or at least would be completely if not for copyright restrictions legally. Ads detract from the value. In other words, as a resource, ad-laden podcasts are worse than ad-free podcasts. If you ask people to pay to access the ad-free versions, that's a "club good" (non-rivalrous but now exclusive). That also dramatically reduces the value to the world. (Also, the existence of ad-laden ones is a detraction itself, even affecting the ad-free versions because ads create conflicts-of-interest). So, all the economics here is about about the public goods dilemma. How the heck can fund the work without all these detractions? Taxes? I'm not saying the answer is easy, I'm saying we should get the question right. The one view I reject: that somehow ads in podcasts are a good thing. Rather, ads are an unfortunate compromise given the challenges of funding public goods. There's little room for debate there. What is called for is specifically funding models that somehow coordinate critical mass of people without the use of paywalls or detractions like ads.
ajayyy 7y ago
Cool project, interesting decision to monetize something like this though. I made SponsorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/), which is a similar premise for YouTube videos except free, open source, and with a publicly downloadable database. I posted about it on HN back in August. I'd be curious if you'd be willing to do what I've done here and make it more open. When you are dealing with things like this (ad blocking), it gives you more of a responsibility to share. Anyway, how do you do this? Is it a reporting system? Or is there some kind of algorithm you made?
- adskipprod 7y ago
  It's not a reporting system. I believe that idea has been tried and did not work. This uses all-new technology to find the ads and skip over.
  - ajayyy 7y ago
    Interesting. I mean, I am using it and it is working :) But yea, it's good that you made your own idea instead.
  - slenk 7y ago
    By just looking for the music that plays at the beginning of some ads?
    - ajayyy 7y ago
      That's probably it. Their vague terms make me suspicious.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  Hey dude just wanted to say your extension makes my YouTube experience hugely more enjoyable
waxjar 7y ago
This submission is _advertising_ a paid app to... skip ads. Question for OP: how would you feel about a browser extension that automatically recognises submissions of this nature and hides them?
- adskipprod 7y ago
  HN Rules: "Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread." I thought the whole purpose of Show HN is to show what you've created. Should there be restrictions on the types of things being created? In your example, I think the browser extension would hide every submission on Show HN.
downerending 7y ago
I intrigued at how uniformly negative the reaction is to this. Do people here not use things like AdBlock? Do you also avoid fast-forwarding over ads in videos for the same reason?
- ajayyy 7y ago
  I think it is that they are charging money.
  - downerending 7y ago
    Seems like a weird place to draw the ethical line.
    - ajayyy 7y ago
      Almost every adblocker out there is free and open source for a reason.
ykevinator 7y ago
Cannot believe this was flagged
- adskipprod 7y ago
  Why should a lively and interesting discussion be flagged? I'm interested in hearing all opinions, not trying to shut down someone I disagree with.
moltar 7y ago
I was thinking something like this should exist, but podcasts should be paid for skipped ads. I don’t mind paying a small fee for ad free podcasts. I also want some system that fast forwards all the intro stuff straight to the meat and potatoes.
- aliveupstairs 7y ago
  I think you can do that with Pocketcast (free on android, paid on the web) and set a unique time for each podcast.
czr 7y ago
typo: under supported podcasts, heavyweight is listed twice.
smcleod 7y ago
It has just about the ridiculous ToS I've ever seen, including stating that you can't post links to it! https://adskippro.com/terms.html https://adskippro.com/terms.html
- paulcole 7y ago
  I thought it was funny that an unethical app even has a ToS in the first place. Like the guy robbing my house telling me I can’t pick his pocket.
adskipprod 7y ago
OP here: If you are already skipping the ads with the skip-forward button in your favorite app, you will love AdSkipPro. I use it every day driving back and forth to work, and I think it's great. If you don't skip the ads, and you enjoy listening to them, you will of course continue to do so using your favorite podcast app. AdSkipPro will not be for you. I don't think there will be any net difference to advertisers and the podcasting community. Those that skip will continue to skip, and those that don't won't.
frankydp 7y ago
This is simple fraud.
newscracker 7y ago
You want me to pay $1.99 for an app I can’t try, which doesn’t have any other features that other podcast player apps have, and also prohibit linking to your product anywhere in your ToS? It’s a very shady beginning, to say the least.
CharlesW 7y ago
So how do creators block this app, since those users are literally worthless to them?

124 points by adskipprod 7y ago

So get the free content without giving the content provider money or any opportunity to monetize via ads ? And expect that they will give quality content forever ?

0xffff2 7y ago
I would rather be able to get paid content without giving the content provider money or any opportunity to monetize via ads, but that doesn't seem to be an option.
- cryptozeus 7y ago
  I think this works in idea but not sustainable for provider. May be if there is a way to get both...choose free or pay for add free. Some of the major podcasters tried going paid route and reversed back to ad based model. i.e. tim ferriss

dickjocke 7y ago

Very cool idea, I'm curious about how this was built and works. I'm also curious if you think you'll face any challenges or if Apple will allow this to live on the play store?

adskipprod 7y ago
I can't tell how it works, because I don't want to create competitors. I don't see why Apple would have a problem with it. Their own "Podcasts" app lets you skip ads. This app finds the ads and skips automatically.
- dickjocke 7y ago
  Lmao, because you are draining their platform's content creators of value?

danShumway 7y ago

Pure curiosity, is this based off of Adblock Radio? https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio https://github.com/adblockradio/adblockradio I've been curious for a while how hard it would be to proxy my podcast feeds through a local server that stripped ads. As far as I can tell, this stuff has to be done dynamically per-file -- sharing timestamps don't work because ads are dynamically injected during each download.

adskipprod 7y ago
It's not using Adblock Radio, though that is an interesting idea. All new technology.
- dest 7y ago
  Creator of Adblock Radio here. If some day you are able to share your approach to filter ads, especially native ones, I would greatly appreciate it.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Their homepage shows you the few podcasts they support which suggests some sort of manual pattern recognition per channel. It's clearly not a general solution like adblockradio.
    - psalminen 7y ago
      Yeah, looking at the list I know 99pi and Reply-all play special music at the beginning of their ads.

bberenberg 7y ago

I was thinking about making exactly this today while listening to 99PI. Decided that I would rather support the makers. I wish that the various apps allowed subscriptions to avoid ads in a given podcast. 99PI is doing a fundraising drive right now. As part of it, they share that 1/10,000 listeners donates. I would be happy to pay 99PI $1 a month for their podcasts if I could skip ads.

tw1010 7y ago
If the advertisers can't tell if you're using this app or a traditional podcast app, are you really supporting the makers any less by using this app? The advertisers won't pay them any less because they won't be able to know that x% of users didn't hear the ad.
- bberenberg 7y ago
  ️ Good question. I see it as a moral/ethical line more than a technical one.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  That's how we're going to end up with tracking in podcasts :(
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jldugger 7y ago
  Who says they can't? The user agent used to download the podcast is a pretty strong signal, and it seems reasonable for podcasters to expose this data if it means higher bids on ads.
  - sneak 7y ago
    Seems like ad skipping players should identify exactly as non-ad skipping players, then.
  - epicide 7y ago

TomWhitwell 7y ago

Next you could make an app that lets you go into small independent stores and shoplift things without getting caught.

joshschreuder 7y ago
You wouldn't download a car.
- maxaf 7y ago
  But plenty of people would download a mobile app that would unlock someone else's car for a free joyride.
  - salamander014 7y ago
    Turo.
nickthegreek 7y ago
well that would be illegal... there is nothing illegal about me seeking past a portion of my podcast or taking out my headphones for X amount of seconds.
- tantalor 7y ago
  > seeking past a portion, taking out my headphones That's not what this app does.
  - nickthegreek 7y ago
    According to the landing page, that is exactly what it does. "When AdSkipPro gets to the ads that were found above, it skips over and keeps on playing. The ads are still in there, and in fact you can go back and hear them if you like. This example shows AdSkipPro jumping from 23:49 to 25:09, past several ads:"

AndrewWarner 7y ago

As a podcaster (Mixergy.com), I love this. My listeners should never feel guilty about skipping ads. If my ads aren't interesting or don't improve your life, you owe it to yourself to skip. I keep working to improve my ads. Most recently: I hired a copywriter (Neville Medhora) to go over my ad reads. And today I recorded interviews with 10-second ads, instead of 3-minute ones.

tantalor 7y ago
If your listeners use this app they won't know whether the ads are interesting.
WiseWeasel 7y ago
If you read off your own ads live rather than playing recordings, there’s a good chance this app wouldn’t be able to differentiate them from your content in order to skip them automatically. I’d also expect listeners to be much less likely to mind, since it would be such a nicer experience than the norm.
TurkishPoptart 7y ago
How did you find your copywriter? Just curious.
throwGuardian 7y ago
But Andrew, they don't care if you put effort in to curate ads that your listeners might find valuable, they just want to skip the ads regardless. They want you to keep working your tail off, and entertaining them for free - they are apparently entitled to it.

rahuldottech 7y ago

Cool idea? Yes. Good idea? No. If we do stuff like this, the podcast industry will switch to a closed system which would require you to install proprietary apps to listen to stuff. Likely several different apps for different shows and companies. As it exists today, it's a very open system, with publicly accessible feeds and the ability to use any app. Don't ruin it. It's not hard to press the "skip forward 30 seconds" button when an ad starts playing. Edit: also, it's super unethical to have a paid app that profits by taking away any scope for content creators to monetize. Leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Didn't realise it was a paid app at first. Shame on you, OP.

Akababa 7y ago
You could say the same thing about adblockers in general. It's unfortunately pushed more content creators to put up paywalls and move to subscription-based models. The smart thing to do with apps like this is to keep it to yourself, but inevitably someone will release one for the masses.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  Yeah, but ads on the web have lots of issues like tracking and malicious code injection, so blocking them makes total sense. A lot fewer people would be using ad blockers in browsers if web ads were as simple as podcast ads (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links) .
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links) You could also have dynamic images thank to GIFs. Just think of the possibilities that would be enabled by that - "Hit the monkey!", "Shoot the gangster!" - An incredibly effective way to drive engagement.
roywiggins 7y ago
That's Luminary's business model, as far as I can tell.

sevkih 7y ago

da wut??? apple actually allowed this?

sigjuice 7y ago
Why wouldn’t they allow it? What rules are being broken by this app?

vsskanth 7y ago

Personally, I'm OK with ads in podcasts. They are based on the general audience for the show and doesn't have any intrusive tracking or personalization. If I'm really tired of the ad I can just skip ahead 30 seconds.

saagarjha 7y ago

I find it interesting that their terms of use attempts to place restrictions on linking to their homepage: https://adskippro.com/terms.html https://adskippro.com/terms.html I also find it interesting that this is in the terms, when their app is $1.99: > To the extent that the app and the information and services on the app are provided free of charge, we will not be liable for any loss or damage of any nature.

conroy 7y ago
My guess is that they're using a boilerplate ToS, as the app looks relatively new.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  It's a bit mad to put up a ToS that your users are nominally expected to follow when you clearly haven't read it yourself...
adskipprod 7y ago
It's boilerplate - I'll update it.

abhisuri97 7y ago

So how does it really do the skipping feature? Do you transcribe the podcast and look for standard advertising copy for companies like Squarespace, hello fresh, etc? Would it register a false positive if one of those company names is said?

rahuldottech 7y ago
Most podcasts, have a particular jingle/tune that plays before/during the ad, which should not be difficult to identify with some clever code. But honestly manual flagging wouldn't be too hard either.
adskipprod 7y ago
Well, I couldn't tell because I wouldn't want to create competitors! I don't think it will ever register a false positive. It's really that good.

corodra 7y ago

I'm going to have to agree with this is not a "good" idea. ~95% of podcasters are just small team folks. They make a bit of money on the side with it or just barely make enough to do it full time. I've always been willing to listen to the ads done by creators on both youtube (Not the yt ads, the ones creators do little skits or do a speech that benefits them directly) and podcasts. It supports the content and most of the money goes to create more stuff I actually like to watch/listen to.

ortusdux 7y ago

I'm still shocked that Google has not made a podcast platform wherein they manage the ads and subscriptions. Host the audio, inject ads at the breaks, allow paid subscriptions that remove the ads, have a monthly payment option, etc. Basically half YouTube half Audible. I do listen to one podcast that has an ad-free feed for patreon supporters. It works rather well and they have add a surprising amount of bonus content for subscribers.

komali2 7y ago
I don't trust Google to make a product of that quality or usefulness. They already had a superior product to competition, in my opinion: Google Play Music, better than Spotify. Better UI, didn't crash, better app, more reliable casting, etc. But they're closing it and making you switch to Youtube Music. Under the hood, they won't register new agencies for submitting to Google Play Music. Current ones can so you'll still see new music, but the point is they're pushing everyone to probably the worst music playing app I've ever seen in my life. So, if they were going to do it, they'd do it on Youtube Music, but that app is hot garbage, so, don't expect too high.
0xffff2 7y ago
How is the ad-free feed hosted? I'd love for this to be a widespread thing, but I listen to podcasts almost entirely during long drives, so I worry that paid content will fragment distribution.
- ortusdux 7y ago
  https://www.patreon.com/law https://www.patreon.com/law You get a unique RSS feed for the commercial free episodes and bonus content.
DataGata 7y ago
"YouListen"

danpalmer 7y ago

I block ads on the web because web advertising networks proved that they had no respect for user privacy, lacked security controls around their ad delivery, and were targeting using data that they probably shouldn’t have had access to. Podcasts do not suffer from this. It’s much harder to identify a user, the ads aren’t software, just audio, so security is better and there’s not much way to see who is listening to the ads other than voucher codes/referral links (which are inherently opt-in). Yes I can always skip ads. Do I feel any security or privacy need to automate doing this? No. If/when podcast advertising goes the way of web advertising, then there will be an eager market for this product, but until then let’s enjoy unobtrusive, respectful ads from hosts we trust, with targeting done broadly by podcast rather than personally identifiable information.

chrisfosterelli 7y ago
Yeah podcasts are one of the few domains I don't find ads intrusive and can't be bothered to care to skip them. Often I find they are more useful and better targeted than web ads, I might not go as far as saying I'm interested in hearing them but it never feels "in the way" of the content I want.
theluketaylor 7y ago
Couldn't agree more. I block ads on the web due to the invasive tracking and targeting. I'm not opposed to ethical, reasonable ad space which is why I don't tear ad pages out of magazines when they arrive. If news sites would run their ad infrastructure focused on presentment rather than tracking I would grant them an exception to my ad blocker. While they outsource ad space to adtech and use their platform as a method to execute arbitrary code on my computing devices the block stays up. Podcast ads tend to be non-intrusive, are much harder to track and are non-executable. I listen to some very niche podcasts and am happy for the hosts to receive compensation for their creation, especially since it doesn't come at the expense of my privacy.
hoistbypetard 7y ago
I agree. On the web, I've actually stopped using a real ad blocker over the past few years and just use EFF's privacy badger. That only sets out to block tracking, but coincidentally enough it effectively blocks most nuisance ads. With podcast ads that are just inlined in the audio stream and based only on content, not user tracking, I'm perfectly happy to either listen to them if they're interesting or tap the 30 second skip button if they're not. (I probably only bother fishing my phone out to tap the 30 second skip button 15% of the time. They're more frequently interesting me enough for me to do a web search for the company that's advertised.)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mariopepper 7y ago

Looks like a pretty good idea

goldcd 7y ago

I came here to judge - but if there's no way of paying for the adverts to go away (stitcher? maybe spotify (I pay, but don't use it for podcasts)) I have sympathy. Skeptoid did offer a nice/hacky/old-school solution likely to work with your favourite player - subscribe manually with ~ http://<username>:<password>@<site.com/ad_free_url/>podcasts.xml http://<username>:<password>@<site.com/ad_free_url/>podcasts... Providing your player lets you put in a URL - it "works" and doesn't require you switching your client. I do wish there was a slightly more formalized process letting you provide credentials to your app and it sorting this all out for you - but then I'm reluctant to engage in a movement that might f'up the XML+MP3 standards approach that's allowed podcasts to flourish.

rahuldottech 7y ago
> I do wish there was a slightly more formalized process letting you provide credentials to your app and it sorting this all out for you There is. The app I use, AntennaPod, allows you to specify a username and password for each podcast feed, and iirc, it uses those for good ol' HTTP authentication.
mmahemoff 7y ago
This is quite common - many podcast apps, if not the very biggest ones, support feed importing and those feeds can include a username and password. It's really not that complicated, it just looks like a long URL and in most cases you can click on it in an email or website on your phone, and add it directly to the podcast app from there. The hard part at the moment is the friction from your podcast app to paying to "unlock" that feed to importing it back to your podcast app. Some of us are working on a standard called PodPass (https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/08/podpass-wants-to-build-the-identity-layer-for-podcasting-before-some-big-tech-company-does-it-first/ https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/08/podpass-wants-to-build-the...) to make it seamless, but without the walled gardens.
- goldcd 7y ago
  Yep - that's the vague amorphous idea I had rattling around my head, just described by somebody who knows what they're doing. As stated - it's getting the initial adoption going that's problematic. Probably pointing out the obvious, but NPR bought my favourite client Pocket Casts. At naive glance, looks like a good fit. NPR already has an excellent group of people who've donated (so whole bunch of people paying already) and with this would give them a way of rewarding them with the adverts removed. Plus think both sides of this would be advocates for still allowing the output to be available widely, and not walled up somewhere.

nkrisc 7y ago

The best way to skip ads in podcasts is to not listen to the podcasts if you don't like the ads. Or, you know, pay the creators.

adskipprod 7y ago
OK, but do you read every ad on every web page you visit?
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Consciously? No. Subconsciously I probably scan them as I look around the page which can trigger further investigation. Did you pay full attention to every ad you listened to in a podcast? I don't even know what your point is. Full disclosure, I use ad blockers online (but whitelist sites and subscribe to others). The reason I do so is first and foremost for security reasons. Ad networks deliver malware, despite their best efforts. They also deliver battery-draining ads and bloat. I'm not inherently opposed to advertising, however. Last I checked, listening to ads in podcasts is not going to give your phone malware or spin up your CPU 100% so I don't really see the point of blocking them. As far as advertising goes, podcast ads are pretty benign. Sure, you can do it and I'm not even going to call you a bad person, but it just seems like the wrong battle to be fighting. Either it never takes off and the whole thing is moot, or it really takes off and forces podcast creators to monetize in ways that are less benign. No real gain.

sneak 7y ago

Ads are terrible regardless of whether they are “nice, inoffensive privacy protecting ads” or “unethical spyware web ad network ads”. This is a great tool and saves people their only truly nonrenewable resource: time. Thank you for making it; if I listened to any of these podcasts I would be using it. Always block everyone’s ads.

adskipprod 7y ago
Thank you. Which podcasts do you listen to?
- PascLeRasc 7y ago
  If you value your podcasters' livelihoods, don't tell him.
- sneak 7y ago
  The Bunker New York http://thebunkerny.com/podcasts http://thebunkerny.com/podcasts Mysteries of The Deep https://m.soundcloud.com/mysteriesofthedeep/sets/mysteries https://m.soundcloud.com/mysteriesofthedeep/sets/mysteries The latter is even in alac-m4a lossless, something that surprised and delighted me. One is run by a friend and the other is run by a friend of friends. They’re both truly excellent. Neither have ads.

post_break 7y ago

I think it's funny the outrage over ad skipping podcasts, but keeping browser ad-blockers installed is ok. I mean there is only so many times I can hear the same casper, generic vpn, eero, ad and not want to pull my hair out. Especially when the podcast boasts about how they use the product and how it's not like anything they've ever tried before.

rahuldottech 7y ago
> but keeping browser ad-blockers installed is ok. That's because web ads track you, can inject malicious code, and are obtrusive. As I said elsewhere in the thread, a lot fewer people would be using ad blockers in browsers if web ads were as simple as podcast ads (the equivalent would be unobtrusive static images with links).
- post_break 7y ago
  If you bought a DVR and recorded a TV show would you want the one with the commercial break skipper feature?
  - adskipprod 7y ago
    I sure would :)

aloukissas 7y ago

Amazing! Was meaning to build something like this for a while, glad you beat me to it! Re: monetization/ethics/etc -- would 100% support podcasts that follow the Brave model with opt-in for ads or pay if you want ad-free experience.

adskipprod 7y ago
I agree - thank you!
- aloukissas 7y ago
  Just realized this is iOS-only. Any chance you've built this on react-native (which will make it trivial to port to Android)?
  - adskipprod 7y ago
    Not react-native, and the port to Android will not be trivial.

fenwick67 7y ago

Can't wait for old-timey radio product placement in my podcasts. "The party enters the wizard's keep. It smells fresh and clean, like it was recently cleaned with Febreeze, which the wizard uses for all his odor-destroying needs."

president 7y ago

You're getting a lot of hate for it but congrats on the release. Can you comment on how you are identifying ad content?

freeplay 7y ago
Doubtful. I'm interested in that as well. If I were making it, I would listen for keywords (ex: Cash App, Onit, MyBookie.com, Manscaping, Dollar Shave Club) that could be updated like an AdBlock filter list. Combine that with obvious changes in inflection, notable differences in the waveform, etc. I would also assume my implementation would cut the podcast down to about 4 minutes with all the false positives.
adskipprod 7y ago
I see it as a meaningful discussion, not necessarily hate, but I see your point! I can't tell how it works, just that it is pretty cool!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

throwGuardian 7y ago

This is why we can't have nice things. Podcasts rely on advertising for revenue, and given the static nature of pre-recorded ads, they are the least intrusive in this era of AI driven hyper real-time ad-targeting. Reminiscent of print ads on newspapers. So respect the effort of the creator and stop automating ad skipping. Heck, I even implore you to listen to the ads that make your favorite shows available for free, but you always have the skip-ahead button in your player

criddell 7y ago
NPR inserts targeted ads when you download an episode.
- slenk 7y ago
  Isn't it only geo-based though? Of the IP you are downloading from? Fine. Do that. That is still very unobtrusive
  - criddell 7y ago
    It isn't clear exactly what they are doing nor have they said what their plans are. I think NPR bought Pocket Casts and I doubt they spent all that money with no plans for a return on that investment.
    - slenk 7y ago
      I fear more and more podcasts are going to start locking you into a podcast app. It's turning into the video streaming scene
      - criddell 7y ago
        I think that's exactly what some of these companies think they are building - Netflix for podcasts. Unfortunately for them, there isn't a lot of value in podcasts for most people and I can't see that changing.

butz 7y ago

Podcasters should probably provide ad-less versions of podcasts for subscribing users, e.g. using Coil or similar extension for monetization.

deleted 7y ago

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Nextgrid 7y ago

To the people saying this is morally wrong, let me give you a different perspective: I watch a lot of YouTube videos and they are ad-supported (although I do support them on Patreon whenever possible). The ads are for the likes of SquareSpace, Skillshare, etc (there's also lots of shit like VPN providers but let's focus on the good ones first). I'm already aware of these brands, I even recommend one of them to clients. At this point, the ads aren't telling me anything new, don't make me aware of a new product, they are just annoying and waste my time. Is it still wrong to block these ads?

rahuldottech 7y ago
As I've said elsewhere in the thread, it's okay to manually skip ads, because some percentage of the users will still listen to the ad, especially if it's the first time they're hearing it. If you implement automatic ad blockers, that guarantees that no one is listening to the ad. Which would mean no revenue for the content creators. Which would lead to a really crappy system.
bearcobra 7y ago
It would be interesting if a service existed where you could mark ads as "watched" to stop seeing them anymore. On the other hand, advertisers seem to believe they need to keep advertising to consumers who already know their products. Coke spends something like $5 billion/year on ads despite probably being the most recognized company on the planet.

mumblemumble 7y ago

A good percentage of the ad-supported podcasts I listen to also have an ad-free feed for their Patreon subscribers. I'd say look there first if you're looking to spend money to avoid ads. We messed this up 20 years ago when online print media tried doing the same, and the result has been an endless and wasteful arms race. Let's not mess this up again.

criddell 7y ago
The arms race is inevitable. Podcast companies haven't been receiving investments because of that sweet SquareSpace money. They want to track everything there is about how a podcast is listened to and by whom and then monetize that every way they can.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  Right now, they're a long way from doing sophisiticated tracking. My podcast app just downloads an mp3 file from a feed; it's not executing any JavaScript, or otherwise doing anything they can use to do the kind of tracking that happens on the Web. That regime has been stable for decades, and I can't imagine it will change unless something changes to make it stop working for podcasters. Because moving their distribution channel from RSS to some sort of closed app risks alienating their audience.
  - criddell 7y ago
    Some of the big podcast apps have recently been sold and it only makes sense that they plan on adding telemetry. The MP3 file might not change, but there's a chance that they are going to start watching you play it. A lot of investments have been made in the podcast world recently and VCs usually don't make things better.

rosybox 7y ago

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

spike021 7y ago

Seems odd... Most podcasts are pretty grassroots without financial backing, I think. I don't really mind the ads, and most podcasts apps seem to have skip buttons anyway. I mostly use the iOS podcast app, but it has a 30 second skip button. That usually gets me right past the ads.

tus88 7y ago

I think people are making too big a deal out of this. Popular podcasters do make money through Patreon for example, not everything comes down to advertising. And for frank, honest commentary, I think I would rather not have advertiser influence over podcasts, just like the news. And many people do podcasts just out of passion or a hobby...they are more like blogs than anything else.

pembrook 7y ago
>I think I would rather not have advertiser influence over podcasts So you're willing to pay the creators instead? >many people do podcasts just out of passion or a hobby...they are more like blogs than anything else ...ahhh I guess not. Nevermind then. Ads it is!
- tus88 7y ago
  I am not a huge podcast listener, but I understand some of the most supported people on Patreon are podcasters. I also use Patreon, however I support YouTubers as I find videos much more engaging than podcasts. So in general yes, I am willing to pay creators through platforms like Patreon, as I guess millions of people are.

adskipprod 7y ago

Founder here: I think that many people already skip the ads using the 30 second skip forward button. I know I did before building this app. I'm also thinking about safety -- people driving their car and reaching for their phone to skip the ads.

iamdbtoo 7y ago
The biggest issue here for me is that you're charging for this app. You're basically asking me to pay you for your hard work of removing ads from someone else's hard work of creating content.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  You're welcome to pay someone else making the content, aren't you? And then throw this developer another $1.99 so that the other creator doesn't have to put in more hard work to make a special ad-free stream for you.
  - bilekas 7y ago
    I would happily pay some of the non spotify / subscription based podcasts I enjoy, infact I do through patreon etc. If the content provider offers it, and I want to give it, cool. But paying for this, has nothing to do with the provider.. At all actually. All money goes to someone who filtered out Adverts, if you wanna have a better argument you could say : can't anyone do this: And yes, but its the time and effort that goes into it, maybe release it open source and free so others can build a network of methods to remove more ads and even support the content provider without them needing to invest in a 'special ad-free' streaming service. Nobody is telling you not to use this, just their own reasons for not.
- adskipprod 7y ago
  It's not removing the ads. The ads are still in there. It skips over them. I think that many people are already pressing the 30 second forward button to skip. This app skips for you automatically, at exactly the right place. It saves the user from having to do it manually.

bilekas 7y ago

Edit your title : "I built and app that skips over other peoples add and puts mine in"

adskipprod 7y ago
Perhaps you misunderstood what the app does?
- bilekas 7y ago
  I'm really happy you respond to the harsh criticism given, but do you think its cool to say : "Hey, no adds in this paid app........ But the money doesn't go to the guy who made the content" I get why you might have done it, hey a nice adblock feature. But you are asking for money for it.. Did I miss something ?

bwb 7y ago

I think this is wrong morally.

kaffeemitsahne 7y ago

And now suddenly (looking at a lot of the comments here) ad-blocking is about privacy? I simply don't want to see/hear crap, period.

PascLeRasc 7y ago
"I want people to spend the equivalent of a full-time job researching content, writing shows, organizing guest appearances, producing high-quality audio, and marketing/distributing it to me. I'm prepared to pay exactly $0 for this, and I can't not be entertained for a 30-second sponsor spot."
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  The absence of content while the ad plays is obviously not the issue. It's the presence of other, malicious content.
  - PascLeRasc 7y ago
    What's the current state of the art on embedding malware in audio files?
- ads-always-suck 7y ago
  Well boo-hoo then, they can get a real day job instead. The hardcore hobbyists will continue to podcast without ads /and do it for FREE!/ All that will be lost are the money grubbers willing to podcast anything in order to grub more grubbies. I often find "ad supported" to be inferior to "doing it for FREE" as the former does things (anything) for the money while the latter does it for the passion of doing it. "Ad supported" will always be a cancer on the true art of doing anything! If only ad income was taxed rather than 40-hour wage income, the country would be a more beautiful place...
adskipprod 7y ago
You are the perfect customer for this app. $1.99 :)

mersenne 7y ago

Would you mind sharing what approach did you use to trim the ads? Did you manually detect the ads and then trimmed the file or are you using an automatic (perhaps ML-based) approach?

adskipprod 7y ago
The only thing I can share is that it does not modify or trim the podcast. It downloads the podcast, finds the ads, plays it, and skips over the ads. The ads are still in there. After it skips the ads, you could manually skip backwards and hear that they are still there.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

quadrangle 7y ago

The big picture is that podcasts are economically public goods (non-rivalrous, non-exclusive), or at least would be completely if not for copyright restrictions legally. Ads detract from the value. In other words, as a resource, ad-laden podcasts are worse than ad-free podcasts. If you ask people to pay to access the ad-free versions, that's a "club good" (non-rivalrous but now exclusive). That also dramatically reduces the value to the world. (Also, the existence of ad-laden ones is a detraction itself, even affecting the ad-free versions because ads create conflicts-of-interest). So, all the economics here is about about the public goods dilemma. How the heck can fund the work without all these detractions? Taxes? I'm not saying the answer is easy, I'm saying we should get the question right. The one view I reject: that somehow ads in podcasts are a good thing. Rather, ads are an unfortunate compromise given the challenges of funding public goods. There's little room for debate there. What is called for is specifically funding models that somehow coordinate critical mass of people without the use of paywalls or detractions like ads.

ajayyy 7y ago

Cool project, interesting decision to monetize something like this though. I made SponsorBlock (https://sponsor.ajay.app/ https://sponsor.ajay.app/), which is a similar premise for YouTube videos except free, open source, and with a publicly downloadable database. I posted about it on HN back in August. I'd be curious if you'd be willing to do what I've done here and make it more open. When you are dealing with things like this (ad blocking), it gives you more of a responsibility to share. Anyway, how do you do this? Is it a reporting system? Or is there some kind of algorithm you made?

adskipprod 7y ago
It's not a reporting system. I believe that idea has been tried and did not work. This uses all-new technology to find the ads and skip over.
- ajayyy 7y ago
  Interesting. I mean, I am using it and it is working :) But yea, it's good that you made your own idea instead.
- slenk 7y ago
  By just looking for the music that plays at the beginning of some ads?
  - ajayyy 7y ago
    That's probably it. Their vague terms make me suspicious.
faissaloo 7y ago
Hey dude just wanted to say your extension makes my YouTube experience hugely more enjoyable

waxjar 7y ago

This submission is _advertising_ a paid app to... skip ads. Question for OP: how would you feel about a browser extension that automatically recognises submissions of this nature and hides them?

adskipprod 7y ago
HN Rules: "Show HN is for something you've made that other people can play with. HN users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread." I thought the whole purpose of Show HN is to show what you've created. Should there be restrictions on the types of things being created? In your example, I think the browser extension would hide every submission on Show HN.

downerending 7y ago

I intrigued at how uniformly negative the reaction is to this. Do people here not use things like AdBlock? Do you also avoid fast-forwarding over ads in videos for the same reason?

ajayyy 7y ago
I think it is that they are charging money.
- downerending 7y ago
  Seems like a weird place to draw the ethical line.
  - ajayyy 7y ago
    Almost every adblocker out there is free and open source for a reason.

ykevinator 7y ago

Cannot believe this was flagged

adskipprod 7y ago
Why should a lively and interesting discussion be flagged? I'm interested in hearing all opinions, not trying to shut down someone I disagree with.

moltar 7y ago

I was thinking something like this should exist, but podcasts should be paid for skipped ads. I don’t mind paying a small fee for ad free podcasts. I also want some system that fast forwards all the intro stuff straight to the meat and potatoes.

aliveupstairs 7y ago
I think you can do that with Pocketcast (free on android, paid on the web) and set a unique time for each podcast.

czr 7y ago

typo: under supported podcasts, heavyweight is listed twice.

smcleod 7y ago

It has just about the ridiculous ToS I've ever seen, including stating that you can't post links to it! https://adskippro.com/terms.html https://adskippro.com/terms.html

paulcole 7y ago
I thought it was funny that an unethical app even has a ToS in the first place. Like the guy robbing my house telling me I can’t pick his pocket.

adskipprod 7y ago

OP here: If you are already skipping the ads with the skip-forward button in your favorite app, you will love AdSkipPro. I use it every day driving back and forth to work, and I think it's great. If you don't skip the ads, and you enjoy listening to them, you will of course continue to do so using your favorite podcast app. AdSkipPro will not be for you. I don't think there will be any net difference to advertisers and the podcasting community. Those that skip will continue to skip, and those that don't won't.

frankydp 7y ago

This is simple fraud.

newscracker 7y ago

You want me to pay $1.99 for an app I can’t try, which doesn’t have any other features that other podcast player apps have, and also prohibit linking to your product anywhere in your ToS? It’s a very shady beginning, to say the least.

CharlesW 7y ago

So how do creators block this app, since those users are literally worthless to them?