Maybe this thread needs to be separated into a different one called “Walled garden apocalypse”. I specifically set the category to podcast discussion instead of feature request, because I am more interested in the sentiment.
I think people get privacy and transparency mixed up. A open source tool can have API calls in the that might notify 3rd party of data, there is nothing wrong with that. It is when it is embedded and the user can’t find out that it becomes an issue. Do people know how much AntennaPod or any podcatcher leaks just from the very act of having to access a remote server to get the podcast. There is a massive amount of information there. There is nothing wrong with that, but is is there. Adding a feature, and being up front is the correct way, not complete lockdown, security by obscurity doesn’t really work.
I am not invested in the RAD protocol, i am curious in general about any protocol like that, I have not heard of any other. I thread softly though. I look to the DVD region encoding scandal for lessons. Tech companies asked for it to help them control releases of DVD against new movies as they were being released in different territories. Usually this is because the film reel itself was expensive and it was being moved around the planet. I agreed with this usage. Then in 2000, or something, there was a DVD release of Die Hard with some extra features, but only released in the US region. I couldn’t get it and watch it in Europe, and that movie was 12 years old at that point, so long after the cinema release. They were still using the region encoding to control the market, even though that was not why it was put in there.
I have seen the walls go up all over the place. Lots of websites want you on their website, not some rss reader, it is a pain. There is a suite of tools trying to do the good work:
However it is an endless arms race of fixed the feeds, the source websites changing their protocol etc. I have seen a few podcasts disappear already but no longer publishing their rss feed, but you can access the content if you go to their website, ugh!
If you want to see how crazy it can get. Netlix was great at the start, a one stop shop for movies on line, because the other companies didn’t think there was anything of value there. Then when they saw the amount of money been made they started yanked their content off netflix and see have tonnes of service competing for our money, amazon prime, cbs, Disney etc etc. But we can’t afford it all so effectively there is content out of reach now that wasn’t before. Spotify now looks very like Netflix then.
Podcasting is changing, whether we like it or not. They say the content that goes into the walled garden will by definition not be a podcast any more. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
Any way like @tenkara_vt i am very interested in exploring these ideas a bit more.