Every decent podcast app caches, so a 'play' needs a sane definition
Quote
Web browsers aren't the only ones that cache audio and video. All decent... apps, cash, audio, and video. Every single one of them. You find out very quickly when you write a podcast app. that you can't not do it.
Episode 264: Podcast Plebicide (episode page, opens in a new tab) 01:13:50 (play audio from this timestamp, opens in a new tab)
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Summary
Debating how long a play counts, Dave points out that it's meaningless because every decent app caches minutes of audio to ride out bad connectivity, which you learn fast when you write a podcast app. Godcaster sends one play per user per hour, deduplicated with a unique listener ID. Only first-party platforms like YouTube and Spotify can tell a 30 ms play from a 30 s one, so they shouldn't write the definitions alone.
Also said
Episode 264: Podcast Plebicide (episode page, opens in a new tab) 01:14:49 (play audio from this timestamp, opens in a new tab)
This is the problem with having only first party data collectors like YouTube and Spotify. inside this inside this group driving
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