This is all why it would be wonderful to build a system where you have to pay a monthly fee for this feature and then the fee is distributed among the creators you listen to (like all the paid music services, but for podcasts). I understand this is a massive undertaking though.
Many creators offer ad free versions of their podcasts and AntennaPod supports adding them 
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I support this message. 
Some of the podcasts I listen to in AntennaPod are ad-free, not because of ad-busting technology but because I support the podcasts and they provide me an ad-free feed. Some podcasts even provide bonus episodes for supporters.
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ā¦youāre right, thatād be awesome, but the truth is that this project probably doesnāt currently have the capacity to do that. AntennaPod is a podcast aggregator, allowing you to listen to any feed you have, but making a donation system would be a whole other problem.
While the truth is that this feature could be implemented, I also think that, at least for the podcasts I listen to, the ads are not a huge problem, usually and ad at the beginning which can be avoided with the āskip x first secondsā feature, or one in the middle, that with a tap on the forward button just skips it
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Roughly 20 years ago, I took on my first ābigā Linux project by installing MythTV the hard way. I used it for years and from the beginning the ad-skipping feature worked nearly perfectly.
Instead of removing ads from a file, it simply flagged timestamps that appeared to be ads, and would then skip those timestamps on playback. This was accomplished with a single-core CPU that by todayās standards was pathetic, and I think this is the best way to remove ads from a podcast, because you can easily go back in the event the flagger removed a legitimate section of the podcast.
Some people are discussing issues related to funding for podcasters. The ads that I hear are unlikely to be influenced by this because there is no way to track where an ad is consumed. For example, Toyota running national ads to contact my local dealership. I speculate that Toyota is paying for a large blob of ads across many platforms and the podcasters just get paid based on downloads.
However, there are further issues I experience with ads that really make me skip a lot of podcasts, and that is ads that are incredibly high volume and inserted in the middle of sentences, usually 3-5 ads in a ābreakā and often are repeated (3 consecutive of the same ad). It is the future, and podcasters are still terrible at audio, especially when they have guests. So I have to crank my volume to max and then suddenly an ad comes on and I can hear my tiny little Bluetooth speaker blowing itself out. These ads are literally destroying hardware.
Further, Iām listening to a history podcast and get blasted out at max volume dildo ads, exacerbating my hate for ads and more than once I unsubscribe from the podcaster.
I say all that to stress that these podcasters are not employing angels assisting them with their efforts: they are usually working with the worst of the worst, and blocking those ads can force either the advertisement providers or the podcaster to improve the advertising service.
Just my personal opinion, but not having an adblock feature contributes to stagnation in innovation of the production and distribution of podcasts. If Antennapod were to implement a podcasting feature, it could help in playing a critical role in innovation of the entire ecosystem.
An adlbock feature could also be accomplished as a plugin, relieving the core developers from what will likely be a very regularly updated feature, with something akin to filters lists used by uBlock. Lastly, developers of such a plugin could at least consider something similar to a BSD license, which would make it easy to implement across all podcast fetchers.
I just wanted to mention that for me, and I imagine others, I am working with my hands and not near my phone, or have something gooey or wet on my hands and cannot operate the phone, so this feature is effectively unavailable for much of my podcast consumption.
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There are some bad examples indeed. Yet, if they had the luxury, knowledge and/or headspace to do differently, they probably would.
At the same time, inserting ads mid-sentence is just dumb IMHO and any respectable podcaster would avoid that at all cost. If they donāt Iād agree itās probably not worth listening to.
All that to say that this little app called AntennaPod (we have a tiny marketshare) blocking some ads, probably is not gonna change that industry for the good. Innovation is not the result of ad-blocks, rather of better alternatives being offered. If we block ads, itās only introducing an easy negative argument (whether about AP specifically or open podcast apps in general).
Rather challenging, but weāre open to the idea. Weāve recently opened this issue for it: Allow creating plug-ins Ā· Issue #7917 Ā· AntennaPod/AntennaPod Ā· GitHub