Marco Arment launched Overcast in 2014. It was and remains a standalone podcast app. I’ve used it ever since, even while working at companies (like Stitcher and Amazon Music) that made their own podcast apps. Overcast’s approach to podcasts matches my brain’s expectations of how an app should do so. I like that.
Marco is active on the Overcast subreddit, and last month, he shared a fascinating perspective on his role regarding the app he built, launched, and saw success with:
I’ve needed to evolve my expectations for what my role in Overcast is.
After building up a large, passionate userbase over a very long time, it’s not really entirely mine anymore. I can’t just do whatever I want with it.
And the growth era of open/RSS/indie/whatever podcast apps is over. The business is now about serving and retaining my existing customers for as long as possible.
So I can add things here and there, very carefully, but I can’t really change anything significant.
This has been difficult for me to accept, and I’m still not great at it, but I’m getting there.
There are two core parts to break down and think about here.
*It’s not really entirely mine anymore. I can’t just do whatever I want with it.*
Obviously, of course, Marco isn’t speaking literally; it is his app, he can make the changes he wants. But Marco is referring to a sense of obligation — both moral and practical — to an existing customer base, many of them paying customers. If he changes Overcast in ways that alienate a lot of users, that’s problematic for the app’s reputation.
There’s a general truth in software development of any kind — desktop apps, websites, mobile apps — that many, many people hate change. I remember vividly the web-wide vitriol when Facebook would fundamentally change its interface, or how the newsfeed works. People hated those changes.
On the flip side, though, when something is popular enough, we kind of learn to accept the reality we’re given. Facebook’s history of pissing off its users is real, but it obviously remains insanely popular. Of course, “be like Facebook” is lousy advice in nearly any context. I appreciate that Marco wants to do right by his users.
It’s the second part of his Reddit comment that I’ve kept thinking about for nearly two weeks:
And the growth era of open/RSS/indie/whatever podcast apps is over. The business is now about serving and retaining my existing customers for as long as possible.
I get what Marco’s saying here, and I get why he’s saying it, but I don’t entirely agree. I mean, obviously, my career history — which includes sixteen years on the business side of podcasting — may skew my take here. Certainly, Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube would love for podcasts to become fully proprietary and for Marco’s analysis to prove true.
But I don’t actually think that’s what most listeners want. Spotify owns more marketshare in the US and worldwide than Apple Music, but Apple’s standalone Podcasts app still outperforms Spotify for downloads on most shows. Listeners want the right experience for enjoying the shows they listen to. (And I think the professional podcast industry’s ongoing and endless obsession with video is misguided, and not actually what most listeners want. TV didn’t kill radio. The existence of video doesn’t obviate the benefits and use cases for audio-only content. This is a different essay. I feel strongly about it.)
Overcast crushes it in the Apple nerd community. 72 percent of listeners to my ostensibly tech podcast The Rebound listen with Overcast. I’ve tried many, many podcast apps, and I think there’s still growth potential there. Overcast’s limitation today on the audience growth side is the fact that marketing is hard, especially when giants make free apps that are good enough for many users.
Still, apps like Spotify and Podcasts aren’t amazing podcast apps, in my experience. They’re fine. In some ways, they likely hamper growth; they’re not power listener friendly. I think the openness of podcasting — the fact that the majority of huge shows are still available wherever you get your podcasts — is remarkable and lovely.
Though I listen to podcasts daily and love them, and though I love building apps that work just the way I want them to, I’m not going to build a podcast app right now. That’s because I share what I think is the crux of Marco’s point: It’s hard as hell to launch an app today without a massive marketing budget. You need to get press attention and ideally Apple attention and endlessly ongoing attention. That’s tough.
I’m confident Marco can keep his existing customers happy for a long time. If Overcast keeps working on successive versions of iOS, even if he doesn’t add a ton of features but just makes it a bit better, that’s reasonable. I do still think that there’s growth opportunity for indie podcasts, though. It may be prohibitively expensive.
But my optimism is buoyed by the reality that multiple giant companies have tried to create their own Howard Stern effect with closed podcasts, and failed. Spotify used to limit listenership of its biggest shows to their app; it didn’t work. They’re now all available everywhere. And Spotify wasn’t the only company that attempted this approach and eventually gave up.
I don’t think proprietary video podcasts are a hit for consumers, and I think they continue to reject them. I don’t think the big company apps are really delighting customers; I think the shows they can hear are. I think there’s still growth opportunity available for apps like Overcast, but I share Marco’s perspective that it is awfully hard.
My real point is that I hope it continues to be worth Marco’s while to keep Overcast great, because I love it, and my listening experience would be far worse without it.