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Comment by dbh937 | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference between that and any other type of media on the internet? Take YouTube videos for example. An MP4 video file is also "nothing but a regular file served from a web page," yet YouTube doesn't include a "download" link for any videos on their site.

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Right. So one has to install additional software to automate jumping through their hoops and download the MP4 file. In other words: no difference – I wish they would just give us the file in both cases.

I already have a video player that works the way I want it to work. Same thing with e-books and audio. (Having an app to manage the library of media is convenient once the collection gets larger, but I'll choose the app myself.)

Which podcast doesn’t just let you download the file?

I just checked all I’m subscribed to and they all just let me download the file, no problem. Subscribing just makes it much more practical and persistent.

There is no need for extra apps, they just make it more convenient.

This was in the context of

  "Take YouTube videos for example. An MP4 video file is also ..."

But there was a podcast recently that took me quite a while to get the real URL for because they only linked to iTunes. They seem to have fixed it now though (with a libsyn.com RSS link).

Wait until that guy realized 99% of the internet is just databases with skins.

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