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Comment by cranberryturkey | Hacker News Reader

spotify has a "download" button.

This requires using a third-party app for no reason. Unless you meant viewing the episode list from the Spotify site, in which case I certainly can't find a download button anywhere (when not logged in).

You can use the first party Apple Podcasts app, it’s actually quite good now and has all the features I used to subscribe to pocketcasts for (Cross device sync, queueing, high speed playback etc) but it works better. You can tell it to download the podcasts.

Apple Podcasts also seems to natively support some paywalled/subscription podcasts from publications I am subscribed to. Personally I think podcast listening is juuuust different enough from general mp3/music listening that it’s invaluable to have a dedicated app. Especially if you’re like me and listen to like 4-5 hours a day of podcast content.

I appreciate the suggestion. I can see the appeal of using a specific app for podcasts, but it is not my preference.

A lot of this question is really just motivated by trying to understand the reasoning for not having a simple download option on (many) podcast websites.

I know im pulling a No true Scotsman, but i think a RSS feed and Podcast belong together. Of the 13 different podcasts that have currently an episode in my queue, only 2 of them have no webpage directly associated to them. Of the 11 i can access the audio file in all of them.

For reference, I made this post after trying to download episodes from this site:

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/hot-money/episode-1-murder-b...

I am given the option to either listen to the embedded podcast on the site (with no easy way to right-click/save as the actual mp3. Or I can get directed to one of the following:

Apple podcasts Spotify Stitcher (I don't think this even exists anymore?) IHeart RSS

So if I'm attempting to get the podcast using a browser, my options are to:

1) Click the RSS feed, search the feed for the episode, find the direct sound file link, and download it that way

2) View the page source and search the source for the link to the MP3 (this is possible here, but sometimes it is obscured depending on the site).

Just adding a simple "download" link among these which directly downloads the mp3 file without addition clicks would be great here imo.

try fountain.fm. you can actually earn sats for listening and boost your favorite episodes.

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