It took a little longer than expected, but you can finally enjoy one of podcast on Amazon Music, and whoever says one, says any user of the platform in Spain, since this extension of the service has been available in other neighboring countries and beyond, from the United States to Germany, Mexico and even Japan.
The e-commerce giant officially announced podcast support on Amazon Music at the end of last year, because it was unofficially known long before that this was content of interest to the company, whose claim to compete with references such as Apple or Spotify comes from far. Well, the ‘battle’ has begun and it does not promise anything good.
Podcast on Amazon Music
As with the aforementioned Apple or Spotify, but also with more recent and less widespread alternatives such as Deezer, the podcast experience on Amazon Music is the one that could be expected: a separate section in the web and mobile applications, a large selection of national and international programs, and functions such as saving and synchronizing the listening point between sessions and devices.
In summary, the experience of listening to podcasts on Amazon Music is practically the same as doing it on any of the major services, how could it be otherwise, with the advantage of being built into Echo devices and being able to tell Alexa what you want to hear at any given moment.
The selection of available programs is another story, and compared to Spotify, for example, the offer is much smaller and there is not even programming from regional radios, although this will probably change later.
Outside of what the radios provide, the offer is equally limited, although it is possible to find independent programs – those not exclusive to a specific platform – quite well known and it is also expected that the number will grow as the service establishes itself. However, listening to podcasts on Amazon Music is like doing it on Spotify or Deezer: you have access to what they add and nothing else.
Podcast on Amazon Music
So I’m going to repeat myself: using these services is contributing to “the corruption of one of the elementary pillars of the podcast experience. After all, a podcast is still an audio file distributed through content syndication. A radio program created to be distributed by RSS », and not to be imprisoned in the application of the day.
In other words, consuming podcasts on Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music, etc., is to settle for whatever the service wants to add, no possibility of one adding external programs or even being able to export subscriptions when you want to change platforms. With one exception: exclusive programs, which in Spain can only be found on iVoox or payment services such as Audible, also from Amazon, but focused on audiobooks and other audiences.
In the case of exclusive podcasts, it is reasonable, since their authors make money from it; in the rest it is a bad choice not for the authors, but for the users. For now, in addition, there are exclusive podcasts on Amazon Music only in the United States, although the company has already hinted that there could be them in other markets in the near future.
Finally, remember that Amazon Music is a service tied to Amazon Prime subscription and that the music catalog that it includes is very small compared to that of Amazon Music Unlimited, the true competitor of Spotify and Co. whose price is similar.
