Pocket Casts is facing a backlash after a number of legacy users, who were promised an ad-free experience for life, began seeing advertisements within the app. The first reports of the issue appeared in early September on the Pocket Casts support forum and subreddit.
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The popular podcast app was initially a one-time purchase, charging users up to $10 depending on the platform. In 2019, the company switched to a free, subscription-based model. After an outcry from its original customer base, Pocket Casts gave everyone who had previously paid for the app a free lifetime subscription to Pocket Casts Plus, its ad-free premium service.
In 2021, Automattic acquired Pocket Casts. The legacy “Lifetime” memberships were recently rebranded as “Pocket Casts Champion” in August 2024. A support page stated that this rebranding would not change anything about the membership. However, some of these Champion members are now seeing ads and are being prompted to pay a yearly fee to remove them.
The sudden appearance of ads has created confusion, with conflicting information coming from the company. An employee on the Pocket Casts forum claimed the ads were introduced to “sustain the continued work and maintenance of the app,” and that the only way to remove them was to pay for a Plus subscription.
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This statement, however, contradicts Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Pocket Casts’ parent company, Automattic. In a Hacker News thread, Mullenweg stated that the ads were a bug and that the company is working to fix the issue. He affirmed that anyone who paid for Pocket Casts at any point should not be seeing ads. He also explained that the company honours these original customers, even though Automattic does not believe in “lifetime” purchases.
According to Mullenweg, there are only a few thousand of these legacy “Champions” accounts. He believes honouring these users is a way to give them a “gift” rather than forcing them into the new subscription model.
