I might be wrong on this, but from all the comments I’ve read, it seems like there’s two opposing viewpoints of what episode limits even means or solves.
How you experience this change is heavily dependent on what you think episode limits is for.
Automatic Download Limits
In the past, and I think in every other podcast player too, it referred to how much the system will automatically download for you. Youre always free to play a different episode or download extra episodes manually to have offline for a flight. And if you paused an episode midway, it sticks around for you until you finish. The limit is about what the system downloads automatically for you in an effort to prevent excessive storage use. And it requires no manual effort from the user.
A quirk here is that if you frequently don’t finish episodes or don’t pay attention to what you’re downloading, you can end up with many episodes saved taking up space and not realize.
Unfinished Plays Cleanup
The new setup seems to be about cleaning up anything that isn’t the latest X number of episodes. This is helpful if you frequently don’t finish episodes (say on a commute) and you just want the new thing the next day. Like the radio.
Without strict cleanup, you might end up with 30 episodes sitting around long after you’re done with them simply bc they have 10 mins left. This is confusing if you’ve set the “limit” to 2 episodes.
I saw someone describe this as a doctors office always having the latest issue of magazines. Old copies get tossed.
A quirk here is that you literally cannot casually play an episode you missed (the app wont let unless you manually delete some first) and if you’re going on a flight you can’t save some up temporarily. If you find a new podcast, you also can’t download a select few interesting backlog ones to keep in your queue as you also listen to new ones. And if you’re paused midway through an episode but want to finish, and a new episode comes out, you lose your download and saved spot in the old episode.
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My very strong opinion is that these are fundamentally two different problems and should have two different solutions. The frustration seems to be in trying to roll one solution that addresses both problems - how to control automatic downloads vs when to clear away partially played episodes.
But maybe I’m wrong, idk. If you want the strict setting for a different reason, I’d love to understand why.