Good thing I never started using it! Fuck you Google, Reader, Inbox and Music taught me never to get into your shit again.

Used to use pocket cast instead of this, its great

I went to podcini on f-droid. No ads. Works just like Google podcasts. Even has the play speed thing which I really like.

if you've already harvested the data you set out to harvest, stop spending money on the awesome service used to harvest the data

i think its a bit more simple than that

If a product is really good experience for you (ie. Not crammed with ads) AND you dont pay anything for it, then it's not profitable.

Google didnt become one of the biggest companies in the world by doing volunteer work for your benefit

They only exist to show ads and/or harvest your data. Once those goals are met, then the user doesnt matter. They NEVER mattered

So I've been using it on YouTube music and now podcasts suck just as much as when it had Google Music merged.

Now when i just want to listen to my single daily morning podcast, I have to remember to turn the damn thing off because it constantly wants to autoplay random podcasts I have no desire to listen to in the first place. Just ends up throwing my mood off for the day sometimes when it plays some crap that annoys me.

I use Audiobookshelf for audiobooks, but apparently it supports Podcasts too. I haven't tried that feature yet.

It's a self-hosted system that you run on your own server.

Oh damn, I left Google Podcast on time!