It's been a while since I last was on the scene. I know that Covid did a number on... a number of things, and the world of "casual audio" also got a clubhouse-sized shakedown. Well, around this time, I had gone in the opposite direction and left the scene.

Now I'm trying to get back into it, and so many tools are just gone. There doesn't even seem to be a good reason for them to be gone. Does Spotify not have enough money or whatever it is they are getting from crippling their tools? I loved Anchor because it was dead simple. Record, add music from their library, publish. Done. Nothing complicated, no technical skills needed, heck you don't even need a mic. Just talking and sharing, which I understand is not for everyone, but iirc a lot of people were using it.

Now Spotify is pushing everyone to Riverside, which is honestly terrible for casual audio creators. On top of that, they are clearly leaning heavily into video. The whole scene is leaning heavily into video. It seems that podcasting, which (on the professional level) was already very 'produced' is now just becoming all about the production itself, content be damned.

My podcast only had like 30-40 listeners, but I enjoyed making it. Now I'm seriously wondering if it's even worth coming back to. It's like the entire world decided podcasting should only be for professionals or people willing to learn audio engineering.

Anyone know of an app that comes close to what Anchor.fm used to be? Or am I just S.O.L.?

I was going to get back into podcasting, but I found out yesterday that Anchor is now Spotify for Podcasters. Then I found out that those easy tools that Anchor had that were transferred to Spotify for Podcasters are going away in June and being replaced by Riverside. I tried Riverside and it's awful. I couldn't get it to recognize my microphone. Then when I got it to recognize my microphone and I went into their studio I was totally lost. I finally managed to record a sound snippet and I couldn't find any intro/outro/background music. I found a few sound clips for things like drumrolls and applause. I tried asking Spotify for Podcasters' stupid chatbot if the old Anchor features are going to be transferred to Riverside but of course it didn't understand me. Do any of you know if those easy features from Anchor are going over to Riverside in June or am I just going to go back to finding royalty free music and making my own intros and outros and putting everything together in Audacity?