Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

My time listening to the radio was low to start, mainly listening to CDs/MP3 CDs when I started driving, and promptly fell to 0 when I got an iPod and stayed there after I got an iPhone. Why would I want to listen to ads and DJs talking over the music when I can listen to exactly what I want to listen to?

Maybe I'm in the minority but I've never once considered my data usage when it comes to music/podcasts or even radio. There were plenty of apps to stream radio if that's what I really wanted.

View on HN

> Why would I want to listen to ads and DJs talking over the music

Do you really think that is the entirety of terrestrial radio?

Your comment has little to do with TFA - why the FM chip in smartphones is often deliberately disabled by the vendor with no explanation or opt-out for the owner of the phone.

I would never buy a smartphone based on whether it could receive FM radio, and if I had a smartphone that could, I would probably never use it. But the article makes the point that FM radio can work just fine in emergency situations where the mobile network is overwhelmed, and having that capability available could be life-saving.

I’d like to echo this sentiment. Every new technology is a refuge from the advertising on the previous mature technology

I've seen the best minds of my generation wasted on trying to build ad technology. The previously mature technologies provided superior ad technology: untargeted, semi-regulated, sue-able (for truth in advertising, for false advertising, for disinformation). Every new ad technology in my lifetime keeps getting worse for the user and worse for the advertiser but is making lots of money for the tech companies who spend it on a lot of smart people wasting so much of their time continuing to make things worse so that it makes more money.

I'd rather go back to FM radio ads and newspaper ads and broadcast TV ads, personally, if there were an easy way to kill today's ad tech companies.

I listen almost exclusively to non-commercial radio, but every so often I'd scan the dial and sample the commercial stations. Most of the commercial stations in my market have evolved to only interrupt the programming once per hour with ads.

I think the scale is tipping. The only way to listen to music now without a subscription and without ads every few songs is actually old-school FM radio.

There are still some radio stations with heavy advertisement loads. But most of the dial is not as hard to listen to as it was 10-years ago.

Radio isn't valuable to listeners or competitive because of the music. Even top 40/pop stations are "relevant" to their listeners because of in-person events, giveaways, sports coverage, etc. Hence why the biggest stations in my area are now glorified mouthpieces for sportsbooks

Try non-commercial streaming, such as WFMU or KEXP.

DJs with knowledge, taste, and access to big big collections.

Are they available on IHeartRadio?

Beats me

Reply on news.ycombinator.com