paco.org

Learn. Teach. Tech.

The Stitcher Scare

Published June 8, 2015

So my Stitcher Radio stopped functioning this morning, and as I panicked at the lack of content, I realized that nowhere had I written down my playlist.

2026 update: The scare had a useful lesson

Eleven years later, I no longer use Stitcher. My podcast player is now Overcast, and the mix of shows I listen to has changed considerably.

More important, I no longer have to depend on one podcast app to remember what I subscribe to. Overcast can export subscriptions as an OPML file, which gives me a portable copy of the list. If I change apps again—or an app disappears—the subscriptions can come with me.

That was the real lesson of the original Stitcher scare: the podcasts matter more than the software that happens to organize them.

As of August 2026, my Overcast export contains 41 subscriptions. It is a much broader mix than the old daily-tech-heavy playlist: technology and cybersecurity, news and politics, economics, Texas and Dallas, history and culture, science, media criticism, psychology, and comedy.

The links below go to each show’s official site or official publisher page. Private NPR+ and subscriber-feed URLs from the OPML export are intentionally not published.

Technology, AI, cybersecurity, and the Internet

News, politics, and current affairs

Economics and business

History, ideas, science, and culture

Conversation, comedy, and assorted listening

The list above records public show pages, not the raw OPML feed addresses. Some current subscriptions use private subscriber feeds, so those URLs remain private.

The Daily Grind — 2015

This was the playlist I was worried about losing when Stitcher stopped working. I checked the old links again in August 2026 and replaced dead or obsolete URLs with the closest official current or archive page where one still exists.

PACO.ORG BBS v1.2.0 (ANSI ON) · PRESS / TO SEARCH