Fountain: Podcast Player Reviews

by Harperswoods

I’ll echo all of the negative comments written in other reviews. But what I do want to say is that I think such a buggy app hurts the people who create the podcasts. Too often I’ve gotten frustrated with not earning any sats as promised and would just give up and not listen to the episode. As a result, (fair or not), they end up not having their shows listened to. I really want to like Fountain, the idea is appealing. But it doesn’t work yet and needs to be fixed.

UPDATE 1: They seemed to have removed sponsored podcasts and ads. Since these were the only things that I was able earn sats from without any issues, I’m not earning anything now

UPDATE 2: They’ve added a “New Clips” feature, which seems to only feature clips created by Fountain ’s builder, Oscar Merry. So basically it’s a way of highlighting just his clips so that he earns the sats from all the boosts. Just seems like a lame move.

Might be time to give up on Fountain

by Part-Time Picker

Spent a couple years trying to figure Fountain out. Made about 20,000 sats. Started spending more time on it instead of apple podcasts. This has led to nothing more than frustration.
There is no clarity on how to exactly participate and consistently earn sats. I have Messaged back-and-forth 6-7 times. customer support either does not reply or it takes a long time to get a response.
Fountain is not consistent. Sats stop when things stop the podcast. An alarm on my phone, using the speak button. Incoming calls. And they don't restart. Some days I earn 10 sats...some days I earn 130 sats. A lot of days are zero and I don't understand what caused the podcast to stop earning even though it says im still earning.
Users are warned about manipulating Fountain, but the creators don't realize my issue has nothing to do with manipulation. These are micro cent rewards. I can earn way more per day on random surveys. Which I'm not going to do because I have no time for. I thought listening to my podcasts on a new app would make it easy to earn. Occasionally commenting or boosting on someone's podcast. I also wonder if this is happening for a lot of people. Manipulation? Or Fountain itself is not tracking or working correctly. I'm sorry but i'm over it. Going back to Apple podcasts.

by Frustratedpodcastlistener

No daily earning. Promise of daily earning for non premium members is misleading. Was told that premium members should get minimum of 1 sat a minute for 60 minutes of listening per day. But I’m not sure that happens since some premium members report inconsistent earning too. this app should clarify messaging to accurately reflect actual earning potential. At current bitcoin prices, 1 sat/min for 60 min = 60 sats, and that is worth about a penny USD. So keep that in mind and invest your time accordingly. Probably should be marketed more as a way to support your fav podcaster than a way to earn sats. Best use of Fountain is bring your own bitcoin (byob) and use it to boost content creators. Know what it’s best for so you are not disappointed.

by Jerrywats

Last update-Nothing earns anymore, not even promoted stuff. It’s still hot on your battery, uses up an insane amount of data per podcast if you use data. Auto saves episodes I never want to be saved. Just a garbage app, deleted.
Update——-Only the promoted counts sats towards your wallet, any normal podcast you search for and use still counts 1,2,3 sats then resets to 0. They have had months to fix this issue and are silent on Twitter etc., so 2 stars.——————————————————- Next update——I have an iphone 13 mini, bought new, this is the only app I have that cause my battery to heat up and do so quickly. If you do other things on your phone it cause a significant amount of lag. I would put 2 stars, as this should be in beta, but I don’t want to help kill the project because I want it to succeed. Get it together—————— —-update: Actually the earning is pretty garbage everything else works fine.—————— Little convoluted to find any podcast-go to podcasts-search then you can find them, otherwise, if you try to search overall it doesn’t work properly, but it starts earning immediately!!! It’s great! I listen to podcasts daily! Maybe next, audio books?! ****Slight issue-when I click rewind earning for the rest of the episode becomes an issue even if I open and close Fountain ****

by Tobi-wan

Was able to listen to multiple podcasts, earn sats and pay sats to content I enjoyed. Referred multiple friends to get up to 5X. Now barely earning any sats. They aren’t earning either and have quit using. Just burns up battery, makes phone hot and not earning. Long term this can’t be good for your phone battery life. Will wait for next update but ready to move on as well.

Not good to lose early adopters and those getting others involved with the platform.

by PleasantExit

I’ve been listening to hour long podcasts for weeks and I only earn 1 SAT per episode and I have 2x the SATs. It goes to 12 SATS then resets to 0 and I have only earned 19 cents after hour and hours of podcasts. It overheats my phone super quickly and drains the battery. I like or boost other clips and podcasts for SATS and it says there was a problem and doesn’t give me anything. Basically this doesn’t work. I’ve reported this bug three times in Fountain and no one has responded. I deleted Fountain and reinstalled and still doesn’t work.

by Shftscz

Randomly ceases playback and returns to the home screen. Doesn’t pause playback when other apps such as gps talk over it. No easy way to see which episodes have been played already. Very disappointed.

by Atvedge

I wanted to give your app a shot as it’s podcast 2.0 compliant, but forcing me to create an account before I can even use Fountain is a show stopper. This is an absurd practice that needs to stop. There are much better ways to approach this.

by I Sht U Not

Says it all!

by Adulgo

Cannot use Fountain without creating an account and handing over personal data. Would be nice to be able to create a simple playlist without having to pay money.

by MFArtist

It would crash repeatedly, fail to play downloaded episodes and sometimes switch to an all white screen and I would have to reboot my phone to get it back.

by Rich2637543265432

No thank you. I don’t need to give out information or create an account to use other podcast apps. Later.

by JT136

Must provide email to use the wallet feature.

by Rotormech

Like others, I will not create account to use Fountain!

by Not A Ostrich

I started using Fountain from Adam Currey’s recommendation. My first problem was, Fountain was unable to import my podcast list from my current podcast player. So I had to manually find and follow my favorite podcasts.
Second problem, Fountain is telling me I’m earning sats but they are not accumulating and never get put into my wallet. I know my wallet is set up because I have earned a few, but Fountain is definitely not working as it should.
What’s the point if the promised sats aren’t delivered. I’ll stick to Overcast until they fix the problems.

by Jjstratton

Accomplishes it’s core stand out feature of allowing you to stream sats to a handful of your favorite podcasts, though most of the ones I listen to don’t support it. As a podcast player, it feels half-baked at best. Frequently loses progress if paused for a bit. Sometimes it randomly gets suspended in the background as iOS kills the process. UI isn’t particularly well thought out relative to other podcast apps. Just needs a lot of work before it’s something I’d consider using as my main way to consume podcasts.

by Paintedblue

Home Screen is stuck on Nostr login after update. Current podcast controls aren’t visible unless you search for that episode. Opening Fountain and restarting previous podcast stops after a few seconds. Have to force close, reopen, search for the same episode to get it to play. Searching for subscribed podcasts is annoying. I wanted to like this “off grid” app but the UI is terrible and it requires way too many extra clicks just to play a single episode. Time for a new app.

by Texas Josh

First day using I was able to find all my regular podcasts. Listened to new available podcasts. When the new episodes of my podcasts dropped the next day, only 2 episodes are showing up. I verified on Overcast that new episodes are released, but they aren’t showing up in this app. A bit frustrating as I plan on using a single app to listen, but it seems I’ll have to go back to Overcast to listen to the episodes that aren’t showing up on this app.

by Bccrz

I thought this was cool and would try it out. I downloaded from Fountain Store and made an account. It had limited podcast selection but had a TED talk podcast so listened to that as my first podcast. Nine minutes into the video it paused - even though I was on WiFi for some reason I lost cellular connection and it wouldn’t continue loading the video. Then my phone restarted itself. I have never had this issue before and have now deleted Fountain.

by McZune

Fountain plays podcasts, until it crashes unexplicably. Fountain stops responding after one or two clicks, then it will play for a bit until crashing. Sometimes, it will store up what you've tried to do, then run all the commands at once...then crash. I like that Fountain offers the ability to earn sats while listening to podcasts, but Fountain experience is still very rough.

by Nicky60607

I basically give up 🤷‍♂️ application will work for a day then glitch for a month. Certain podcasts just don’t work randomly but do on every other podcast app. I’ve been here for months and it’s just getting 2 frustrating to use. I wanna support so I do but I’ve had to start listening to some podcasts rise where just to get a break from the Jon stop glitching and freezing. Also phone is burning hot when I use sometimes. It’s just weird…

by BgdknkCCP

I absolutely have really grown to like Fountain very quickly. I really love the concept of earning Satoshis while listening. I know that Fountain is still in beta, and that it is a very small team running the whole operation, and they deserve some grace. Customer service was quick to help and very professional and kind when I had an issue.

Edit:

Reached out several times about the new update, not earning Satoshis. Haven’t received any feedback in weeks and I’m still waiting on Satoshi’s that are supposed to hit my wallet that were promised by a customer service representative for not getting my referral.

by Jorwesflow

Not sure why I stopped earning over a year ago. I’ve continued to use it several hours per day and still nothing.
Also, Fountain is currently using 3.5GB of storage, despite having the downloads turned off and not a single episode saved locally. There’s no way Fountain needs that much storage to just stream podcasts. How do I purge this unecessary data?

by Camilledes

Love Fountain! In my previous review, I complained about the notifications for new shows being broken. Being notified to new shows is a critical feature imo. The developper fixed the bug and now it works flawlessly! Thank you!

Now I started listening to content throught Fountain again, but I noticed that I don't earn sats anymore for listening to shows... It worked well at the begining but has stopped working about 2 months ago. Not sure why.

Otherwise, I'm super excited to see the progress on Fountain, and how valued our feedback as users is. Keep up the good work!

by Bittenbagel

Don’t like that you need an account to even use Fountain and a great part about podcasting 2.0 is setting and viewing chapters. Would love to see this implemented like Podverse.

by Jeremey XVX

Love Fountain but it’s kinda messy. Loses my place on podcasts. Replays podcasts, Doesn’t mark them played. Needs a interface upgrade similar to Overcast when it comes to organization. But overall love using and earning and sharing sats.

Update:
Still having above issues but now I get “something went wrong” for just about everything”.

by Joeukno

Podcasts that I listen to sometimes stop and I have to press play again, which can be annoying. I notice that it happens when I get a notification from a different app. Also, I would like a sleep option for “when episode ends” in addition to the duration preference. Other than that, I enjoy Fountain because we get to earn Sats.

by KingDunadan

Overall I really like Fountain and it has potential to be great. One thing I wish they would add is the ability to change font size. I have a very difficult time reading this tiny type. It’s absurdly small. There are lots of old guys out there like myself who may just abandon Fountain if they cannot read the type.

by Brosefstalin08

Love the concept, unfortunately Fountain is almost unusable with the amount of crashes, freezing, glitches, etc. going on. Please keep pushing bug fixes as I’m sure you’re aware of many of the issues and are actively working to fix them. Will adjust rating when I notice app running efficiently. Thanks.

by Hayther

The earnings do not seem consistent. It appears that unless I have my iPhone unlocked, with the screen up and the podcast that I’m streaming visible, the sats earned don’t continue counting up. It resets if I lock my phone and then come back.

Also, my phone gets really warm while listening. Much warmer than if I’m listening to my Apple podcasts app.

by Unbrokenchain33

Wish I liked it better. Out of 4 episodes of a podcast only got sats for 1. Super buggy and inconsistent. Also drains battery and heats phone up quickly, on wifi w episode downloaded

by Montana Sancho

All of my starred and queued episodes disappeared after the last update. 4 stars because I still have hope that this can be a great platform for content creators, and the fact that it seems like there is no overt censorship of fringe podcasters.

To everyone else whining about streaming sats: you don't get something for nothing. You have the opportunity to support your favorite podcasts on a parallel monetary system. Deposit sats from the Strike app and keep growing this concept and this app!

by Rick Sanchoz

All of my starred and queued episodes disappeared after the last update. 4 stars because I still have hope that this can be a great platform for content creators, and the fact that it seems like there is no overt censorship of fringe podcasters.

To everyone else whining about streaming sats: you don't get something for nothing. You have the opportunity to support your favorite podcasts on a parallel monetary system. Deposit sats from the Strike app and keep growing this concept and this app!

by Ryguy90crypto

Fountain is by far my favorite when it comes to participating in the value for value economy. Sure, there are bugs that drive me insane, but being paid in sats while I’m listening and seeing constant improvements makes it well worth it to use Fountain over the others for my podcasting. Thanks for the hard work, guys. Hopefully sometime soon I can rely on the queue to keep my stuff in order. lol

by TMan253

this app was redesigned to be the premiere solution in value for value podcasting. The new version has all the key features of a great podcast player, including up to 3X playback speed (better than Apple) and per episode art covers (even per second for podcasts that offer it, like Intergalactic Boombox) (better than Overcast). Unlike any competitor out there, this app pays listeners try out featured content or if you experience promotions, and even for just listening to your normal preferred content. Plus, LNURL support makes funding super easy. There is nothing out there that can match the this app experience. Onboarding is fast, easy, and automated - give it a shot, or you will be seriously missing out!

by SamusRaRa

The team at this app app are just built different. They are iterating at a faster rate on features that the average podcasting app just doesn’t have. The other cool thing is you have somthing called Bitcoin built in. Which allows you to directly tip your favorite podcast in real time. This is the future of media⚡️ thanks this app app for leading the way.

by John Wilkes Booth

I gave it 5 stars based on its potential. So cool to earn sats just by listening! Also amazing to boost podcasts with the sats you earn or transfer from your lightning wallet. I credit this app and the Survival podcast for pushing me to finally dabbling with the lightning network. There is room for improvement with the UI and occasional bugs (I just close Fountain and open it again, which has fixed any issues I’ve had)
It’s so refreshing to read a comments section without any bots! I recommend this if you’re at all interested in supporting getting away from the reliance on the big tech oligopoly. I recommend being generous supporting all the amazing podcasters by boosting sats to them.

by T. Aquinas

When I first tried this app last year, there were some frustrating bugs, and it didn’t work with some of my Subaru’s controls. Now all of those problems are fixed and it’s a beautiful app. Not only does it support the Podcasting 2.0 economy, but it provides a wealth of recommendations and clips from other listeners so that I have access to more high quality content than I could ever listen to. Give it a try!

by ReighReighPDX

I tried this app after Adam Curry’s recommendation to try new podcast apps on his show No Agenda Show. this app caught my eye with the logo, and after installing I plugged in the one podcast that I always have trouble finding on Apple podcasts for some reason. Energy 98 The Listening Room (a music podcast) popped right up! For some reason No matter how many keywords I throw into Apple podcast this show does not show up. I can find it on Google’s Podcast thing but the only way I can find it on Apple is to import an old show into the old iTunes software then subscribe from there. Well I’m not on a mac anymore; anyway this app’s search seems to be legit as I am now able to subscribe to one of my all time favorite podcasts. THANK YOU, it’s a small thing in life to get a podcast but it makes daily life enjoyable. THANK YOU!!!

by Circlecast

From being able to show your support for a podcaster to being able to interact with a host in real time. The podcasting 2.0 namespace standards are out of this world.

this app is one of the first apps out there to support many of the podcast 2.0 standards from streaming satoshis and sending boostagrams to letting you know when your favorite podcaster has gone live. You can get transcripts on a show so you can read what your host is saying.

These are all things that your old outdated podcasting app just won’t do. It was using transcripts before Apple was forced to use them.

One of the bigger problems that people faced with using the boostagrams was getting money into your lightning wallet. Yeah there are some wallets you can use or you can use the lightning wallet that comes standard with the this app app. You can refill your wallet right from this app no more app hopping and waiting to see if you did something wrong or not.

This is a great app and it is the future of podcasting and showing that RSS is here to stay.

by KindBud5

It’s not just a podcast about “BitCoin” & “Crypto”…

The People(yes everyday leighppl like You & I, some you’ve maybe heard of many just hmmm…? Lol but seriouslyness talks about ETFs of both markets to full World Economics, such as Sandals & IPAs, Gold & Preciousness, to narcissism & just about everything (eventually) of relevance & note that is going on in our bigg little World./independent yet cogg like mind sets…?

by MJ316219

Blessings Fountain ROCKS! 🤙🏽
Amazing !
Thank You!

by Jack Benji

One of two apps I’ve ever reviewed. Had it for three days.
They’ve made it very easy to operate and it has a very clean and simple look 👍🏼
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#NA
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🤌🏼

by Jhwahaha

Good app for podcasting 2.0 but still in the works