Luminary

Listen to original podcasts

2 followers

Listen to original podcasts

2 followers

Luminary is a podcast streaming platform that gives you access to 500k+ shows, when and where you want. Sign up today and be the first to try!

Launch tags:iOS•Tech

Launch Team

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Promoted

Product Hunt

Raising $100M and locking in exclusives with folks like Guy Raz, Lena Dunham, and Noah Trevor is one way to "brute force" a way into podcast subscriptions. @jason wrote about this exact strategy two years ago here. I'm happy to see more experimentation in this space although my worry is that podcasts will start to resemble the fragmentation we see in TV and film, where consumers are pulled to subscribe to Spotify, Apple, Luminary, etc. to get access to their favorite podcasts (which used to all be free and available on every platform using RSS – NYT Daily and Gimlet's Reply All are not available on Luminary). Curious to hear others POV on this. Will you subscribe to Luminary? Why or why not? 🤔

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7yr ago

Credo

@jason @rrhoover I agree, feels like a brute force effort. At the end of the day, this sort of business is all about distribution. Getting it started is obviously the hardest part, but imo they need to really go deep on content and having enough that people care. They’re competing against the entrenched platforms already. Apple Podcasts sucks, sure, but we use it and are used to it. I use Spotify for podcasts too but still find myself on Apple Podcasts even tho Spotify is a better experience and is just a different app on my phone, and I’ve paid for it from US Day 1 Launch. I think to really take on those incumbents, this needs to be 10x+ better. I don’t think it’s there yet but I’m rooting for the team.

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7yr ago

@jason @rrhoover While I agree that fragmentation will be annoying, I think there is room in the market for this. I don't mind paying $8 / month to avoid ads, and based on the value I get out of podcasts, and the number of hours a month I spend listening to them I think paying a bit for high quality content is fine. For me, podcasts are similar to Audiobooks in the type of value I get from it and I don't mind spending $15 on a book for my Kindle or Audible.

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7yr ago

@jason @rrhoover @dohertyjf I mostly use OverCast

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7yr ago

Podfan

I'm a bit confused - Luminary is a podcast subscription service, but also a podcatcher. Presumably some shows are behind the paywall and ordinary podcasts are not. So what is keeping it from reading RSS feeds of The Daily and Gimlet shows, like any other podcatcher?

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7yr ago

Podfan

For anyone finding this now, podcasts requested to be removed because Luminary was stripping links out of show descriptions and rehosting audio, which is bad for podcasters

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7yr ago

this is cool, but why the need to throw how much money was raised? consumers don't care if you raised a trillion.. just look at theranos billions raised for what

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7yr ago

I don't mind listening to ads on podcasts because those ads are usually very well-placed, relevant and unobtrusive. I see no reason to subscribe to this, especially if I can get most of my podcasts for free elsewhere. And, the podcasts that are Luminary Originals - well - I don't know what I don't know, right? I'll keep discovering and supporting free podcasts from makers who don't give in to brute force tactics.

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7yr ago

?makers Would love to pay for my favorite podcasts and some of them already moved to Luminary. But... Luminary is not available in continental Europe. So these podcasts are now gone for us. Why?

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6yr ago

And the content they are pulling from is a classic case of "what the bay area thinks people actually care about." All the promoted content creators there make me want to run the other way. Kudos to the founders for being able to raise $100MM for this with a straight face, but no freaking thanks.

Pros:

It plays audio, I assume.

Cons:

Things that play audio already exist.

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7yr ago

Lemon Lab

I could definitely see myself paying for Luminary — but it will all depend on the premium content. While the idea of paying for podcasts is new, paying for streaming subscription services is not. And the podcast market in China is worth 23x more than U.S. because of subscriptions.

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7yr ago

SnipLink - Your social website

@taylormajewski Most Chinese podcast apps are "a la carte" where users pay for a specific show, usually educational content for platforms like De Dao. I can see "cult of personality" shows do it in the US -like Joe Rogan or Call her daddy- but paying for a bundle of shows when I'm usually only interested by one, not for me!

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7yr ago

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