I enjoy DailyWire podcasts and listen to them regularly. The content is great, but their technology has a few problems.
The publicly available (free) version teases an additional 30 minutes that’s only available to DailyWire+ members. That’s a smart business model, which in my world is called a freemium.
You can listen to the free version through your regular podcast player, or you can get the DailyWire+ app and listen to the full version.
Unfortunately, the DailyWire+ app is not a good podcast player. (1) You can’t download the episodes. You have to stream them. (2) If you only listen to half of it, and come back later, it doesn’t remember where you left off. (Unless, I think, you leave the app on the whole time.)
I usually choose to download the free version to my podcast player. Streaming doesn’t work well for me, especially on long drives where cell coverage can be spotty.
At the end of the free version, they say “come on over to the member’s block,” but … that doesn’t work. If I listen to an episode on Podcast Addict, then go to the DailyWire+ app, there’s no good way to pick up the show at that point.
So here’s some free advice to DailyWire tech people.
- Allow users to download podcasts in the DailyWire app.
- Keep track of where people are in the podcast, so when they come back they can start at the same place.
- Provide a simple way to skip right to the member portion for people who have already listened to the free portion.
It always annoys me when highly successful businesses go cheesy on their public technology. Daily Wire, really? You can’t get a functional app that does things like permitting downloads and resuming? My public library app manages that, and while there’s taxpayer money behind it I doubt Hoopla is making money hand over fist like DW.
I’m trying to think if there’s some way in which allowing streaming only makes it easier to listen without membership or payment, but I can’t come up with one. Maybe you could send the downloaded files to a friend or something but I can’t see that being a really huge issue, worth making it that much more cumbersome and inconvenient for actual paid members.
Yes, it is surprising, and disappointing. I’ve had other technology problems with DailyWire. It’s clearly not a point of emphasis for them.
Does Shapiro podcast there? If so, they could improve the quality by replacing his voice with a human voice—one not so grating, arrogant, and so rapid fire.