[mortenjorck]

Ok. It seems to be nearly unanimous here that as clever as this app is, it’s on a fast track to a tragedy-of-the-commons situation in podcasting.

Allow me to propose a pivot.

Most listeners know in the first few seconds whether an ad falls into the “hey, that actually sounds interesting” category or the “no, I still don’t need a Squarespace/Casper/Mailchimp” category. Take a page from YouTube and play the first 3-5 seconds of the ad, and then give the user a big skip button that skips the entire ad segment.

Your app will still have the USP of a better experience than jumping back and forward in 15-30 second increments, and it preserves the ad-supported model with a proven UX pattern validated by one of the biggest advertising platforms in the world. You could even form partnerships with podcast networks who want insight into what ads get skipped and which get played for longer.

This HN post brought to you by mortenjorck product consulting.

[teddyh]

> play the first 3-5 seconds of the ad, and then give the user a big skip button

There is another medium which has a similar interaction model, and most people seem to really dislike those, i.e. in-game cut scenes with surprise quicktime events.