Podcast Apps: A Framework for Dying Slowly with Dignity

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Podcast Apps: A Framework for Dying Slowly with Dignity<br>Why I'm making the decisions I'm making for Castro

Dustin Bluck<br>Jul 23, 2026

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There are lots of confounders in this data but the trend is clear. Chart made with Claude.<br>Independent podcast apps are not growing as a category. This is not a particular secret, but perhaps you haven’t seen it stated explicitly. It’s the sort of thing that has to be inferred, but there’s plenty of available data1 if you look for it. While the podcasting sector has seen growth, this has occurred almost entirely on platforms like YouTube2, and the independent podcast app userbase has mostly just stood still.<br>You might have a theory that there’s a funnel and growth in podcasts *must* ultimately be good for the apps. Like YouTube and TikTok introduce people to the concept of podcasts via shorter videos, and as certain users become more enthusiastic about a particular creator or the whole concept, they migrate to specialty apps to ensure they never miss an episode. I like this theory. It’s a good story, but I see very little evidence of this happening. Instead, the apps are largely fighting to retain the same cohort of users who have been using podcast apps since ~2015 while the world moves on.<br>I can’t tell you this with absolute certainty. I have no concrete demographic data on my own podcast app, let alone anyone else’s. It’s a big world, so I’m sure somewhere out there a 21-year-old just downloaded Castro or PocketCasts for the first time and thinks RSS feeds are awesome (if you are this person, please email me). But every number I can see indicates the userbase is both static and aging. Every new customer I talk to has used some combination of Apple Podcasts, Overcast, PocketCasts, or Castro for at least the last 5 years if not the last 10. Some podcast apps are definitely doing better than others, and any given app can win users, but we’re all crabs trapped in the same bucket.<br>One might think that the podcast app incumbents are dinosaurs and an AI-forward podcast app aimed at riding current trends has an opportunity. In reality, no new podcast app seems to be gobbling up any substantial market share3 either. I mean why isn’t something like Snipd moving up in these app rankings? Why hasn’t any app released after 2020 gained any traction at all? That bothers me a lot more than any metric on Castro.<br>It’s a nice idea that all the “major” players are doing something wrong and there’s a cohort of users waiting to be unlocked. I sincerely hope someone does it, but it hasn’t happened yet. Waves of new podcast listeners may exist, but they aren’t downloading episodes via RSS, no matter how many podcast apps are being vibe-coded.<br>This is not a happy story I’m telling you, not for anyone who loves podcast apps like I do. Perhaps there are healthy businesses that get very few new users but instead gracefully age with the ones they have. Ferrari maybe? Buddy, smartphone apps are not one of those businesses.<br>That doesn’t necessarily mean the open podcasting ecosystem is doomed 4, but the apps aren’t doing well and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change. I’m also not going to write a 2000 word diatribe on how it’s not a podcast unless there’s an RSS feed. That’s not my point. The world changes. I’m just stating the facts plainly so you have context on how I’m making decisions at Castro.<br>So I wanted to share some thoughts about podcast apps and what they should be building. This applies to Castro, but it’s not really specific to Castro. It’s certainly not any kind of roadmap or promise. I would rather work on flashy features to capture new users, but, reality being what it is, I have to think about things in terms of both the health of the ecosystem and what will actually help retain existing podcast app users. They’re the only ones I’m going to get.

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On Creator Intent

To a creator, the only real thing a podcast app can be said to have over a platform like Spotify or YouTube is disintermediated access to some of their best listeners. By and large podcast apps are just showing exactly what the creator drops in the RSS, and there are vanishingly few places you can get that.<br>Now most creators aren’t thinking about this in these terms, but some certainly are. Some listeners are as well, and it’s sort of the backbone of the whole medium. Podcast apps basically rely on the trust of the creators to exist.<br>I think this whole integrity-of-the-feed stuff should be taken really seriously. Not because I personally care about the sanctity of the RSS feed in my soul, but more that it’s the only thing we have. Also, as independent apps slowly become relevant to only a small number of hobbyists, those hobbyists are really going to care about the integrity of the feed. I mean trust me, I know those guys.<br>This is why I’m uncomfortable with certain changes others are making. Generating chapters and...