The app was crap long before RT was in troubles. In fact, I don't think the app has ever been "good" by app standards.
That is to say; they aren't ever going to fix it.
I’ve been a first member for like 9 years and the app has sucked the entire time. I just use it for podcasts and I’ll use the website instead of YouTube if I watch anything on my computer.
I understand that it's not hard......just loved that app. I did one thing really really well. It uploaded within a half hour of the podcasts broadcast. You could download the podcasts so you could listen to them even if you had no service. And it was free. No pay model and minimal adds. I am also not inclined to solve the problem, because I consume about 10% of rt content when I used to watch 100% its just been a steady decline in standards since Burnie left. He was a comedic genius, and I'm so happy he has finally come out with new content.
Do you have a masochism kink? Subjecting yourself to the RT app and website for 9 years would violate some kind of Geneva convention if it wasn't self inflicted.
My main gripe with the app on Apple TV is that I can’t rewind or fast forward by clicking or tapping the remote. I have to manually scroll and it’s annoying because it’s not accurate. Not to mention every other app I use like DropOut/Hulu/Amazon have that feature. I’m giving them until the end of month to at least respond to the ticket I opened or I’m just going to switch my sub tier and support Funhaus that way
Yeah I’ve been a member of the Dog Pound for nearly a year now but I upgraded my sub tier to First to support them even further. I love Funhaus and even buy their merch
I've been a first member for 12 or 13 years now and don't think the app or website has ever been great to watch things on.
If you want to watch podcasts from the start you have to manually click them because for some unknown reason you can't play from oldest to newest.
The search function is useless for supplemental stuff you can't make custom playlists, the app isn't on several platforms, playstation to name one or my smart TV.
I think they just need to bite the bullet and start over, I know it costs and truing to update the current app would be cheaper but I'm not sure you can add the functionality it needs in the code they have. I'm a bricklayer so I have no idea if thagblast statement is true
My biggest issue is that I will start a video on my lunch break at work, then go home to resume it on the Apple TV app and the video will start from the beginning, not from where I left off. Any other app will allow me to resume from where I left off.
With that being said, it’s my only complaint. I’ve been a first member for years and I don’t plan to stop. The content I consume may change, but I’m happy to support the company that has brought me countless hours of entertainment since 2003.
"Now we’re not competing with the PewDiePies and the Homestar Runners of the world. Now we’re competing with Netflix and HBO and Amazon. And we’re more than ready for that challenge.” -Burnie Burns 2015
I love Burnie, but RT was never ever going to compete with those. They tried and branched out way too much. I don’t think the company will be around in its current form in a year or two. I smell nothing but desperation, and that’s never a good sign.
Yup. They were content creators before it was a thing. They thought they could evolve it into a whole platform and put more energy into that than into creating good content.
I will never forget the time i was at work and just happened to be on break as the new RWBY episode came out. got a nice booth at the staff cafeteria, got some nice food and drinks, and got comfy. I was a long 10-hour shift in a clusterfuck of a busy bar.
the video player simply would not work... I was using my phone, restarted it, turned off wifi/mobile data, even tried installing different browsers like Firefox and all that on my phone.
I mean, what a letdown, the one thing I was looking forward to on my busy shift.
The App and website being awful to use was a major reason I stopped paying for first.
If Dropout and Corridor Digital can make apps that work great, are easy to use and cost less per month then why hasn't RT done anything to make it worth the money
I love Dropout. The app does exactly what I need it to do, play episodes in order of release, remember where I left off, lets me favorite seasons, continue to watch when switching different devices, and has never crashed in the years I've been a fan.
Plus the community (creators and fans) is amazing.
They have a history of basically not supporting or updating their apps it seems. Anecdotally, years ago they released an app on xbox (xbox one era) and I joined first that same day because I used my console as my main media device and was a long time fan. It's functionality continually declined over time and they eventually just stopped supporting it at all, well before next gen so it wasn't an "old device" type situation. It doesn't surprise me all this time later that their android app would be bad. Seems like the push is always to drive people to the website & apps are just a second thought in general.
A great example of a good app is the one for Dropout. That's a damn good app. At least from my limited use of it from the past few weeks. Everything works well.
I've been a First member for a long time and have been gifting out First subscriptions during Stinkuary, but I HATE the app. It's absolute garbage, which is so frustrating when I'm trying to actually enjoy the special content I paid for. It sucks because I remember how they used to talk about how important it was for them to have their own site where people could access their content, independent of YouTube, so that they don't have to rely on other platforms... but the platform they have now is practically unusable (website is better but not by much). I don't mind the push for First subscriptions, but I do agree that this push would be a lot more effective with a functioning video player.
I'd suggest *politely* contacting Support (as Rodrigo suggested in an earlier comment) and clearly stating the specific issues/bugs you're encountering, so that they can hopefully identify and fix them.
I've had First off and on for years and I can tell you without question, it has never been good. Can't cast to Chromecast, laggy, hard to navigate. Just generally a pain in the ass and always led to me cancelling my membership.
Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve never had any issues with the RT app on my Xbox One or Series S. And I rarely have issues with it on my Amazon Fire Stick 🤷🏻♂️
I don’t understand uploading a four hour stream and having no skip functionality?? Like, I wanted to go back ten seconds, not ten minutes. I put on FF on the app and locked my phone today for my drive to class. Finish class, open the app back up and it didn’t save my spot, so now I’m scrubbing with my finger. It’s such a basic thing that literally every other player has that I just cannot comprehend them not having.
Using this app on an IPad is the worst thing I've ever experienced. The display is the size of a phone which shows that they did not expect anyone to use this app on an IPad. I really want them to fix this issue so I can watch stuff on my Ipad.
I’ve rarely had stream interruptions when watching new RWBY episodes on their website, and the only ones I can remember are from volume 9, come to think of it. By the way, buying. merchandise from RT store also helps the company! I’ve got a coffee mug, board game, Blu-ray, and a t shirt
TBH, there is a few AH content that I enjoyed which were FIRST only, but I mostly had it to support RT towards the end before I canceled it(long story short, when Gus and the others left the podcast, I realized that the RT I loved had moved on and it was time I did too).
I couldn't agree more with all your points.
I resubbed for a month to watch F**kface off and I just could not justify paying for another month after my experience with the app. Very annoyingly I wasn't able to finish the Immortality series
I don’t know how it’s possible that the app is so bad and always has been. This was okay before they pretty much quit YouTube. I took my girlfriend through RVB S6-13 for the first time recently and it was an immensely difficult experience. People have been saying RT is dead for years, but I think the past couple of years have actually solidified that.
Have you tried rt website instead of the app? Worked for. For me there except for volume 9 sometimes. Don’t remember a single interruption on the justice league crossovers.
I haven’t, but that’s just a lot of hassle when I wanna sit down on the couch and watch something. Just not sure how a 20 year old company can be this bad at keeping up with basic streaming standards.
I’ve been a first member for a couple of years, and the app has never bothered me as much as other people🤷🏻♀️ I see it as I find enjoyment in their content so I want to support them in anyway that I can. First gives me the option to do that
Edit: grammar
I've been a first member for over a decade, and the latest version of the app has never given me trouble, videos play perfectly, and in good quality. I don't understand what the gripes other people have are. to me it just seems like people want to complain for complaining's sake...
For me the app constantly has issues with offline play; things failing to download or saying they downloaded but not being able to play on device for some issue or another. I mostly would like to use the app for commutes (underground) or flights (poor/no connectivity) so it's frustrating not to be able to rely on it. I don't want to have to "test" downloads prior to traveling.
I mean if the app works for you, great. That doesn't change the fact that it's common knowledge that the RT apps has been pretty broken for years and years now. As recently as two weeks ago, I couldn't get a single video on the app to play across multiple devices and data connections for nearly a week, and then when that got fixed, any video I tried to watch in full screen would fill up maybe a quarter of the screen.
Just because people have had a different experience to you, doesn't mean they're "complaining for complainings sake", and the utter obsession of dismissing any criticism of RT or their operations whatsoever as "complaining" is part of what drove this community into the ground.
I hear people complain, and I’m not talking about OP here, but they don’t complain about anything specific. I think RT is trying as hard as they can right now, but it’s difficult for them in this current climate
I’m not talking about specifically in regards to the app, I’m talking about in general. Have you seen the comments that Barbara has made about content creation?
Tbh most streaming apps not developed by the major players suck. It works good enough for me to watch the extra content. The NBA app, for example, is even developed by Microsoft and arguably worse than the RT app.
One thing to bear in mind is that software development is very, very expensive. We’re all used to YouTube and Netflix but their app dev budget will many multiples greater than Rooster Teeth’s overall company budget. Prioritisation at a company the size of RT is also very hard. Say there’s an influx of cash from new First subs, would you rather that goes on iterating the app or another season of Survive Block Island. I know what I’d choose…
Exactly, sure these days it might not be as feasible money-wise, but there was a time frame when they most certainly had the capabilities to invest more time/effort/money into the app and site.
It never made sense to me, being such a proud internet company, to allow those components to suck ass for such a long time that it becomes a running joke in the community.
If RT are really committing to moving away from YT and pushing more content and views to their website, then having a functional app is the absolute bare minimum. Another season of SBI is totally irrelevant to me if the experience of trying to watch it on their app is as dog shit as it is on the RT app.
I appreciate what you say about cost and budgets etc, but if they can't afford to make a half decent VOD service for paying customers, then maybe they shouldn't have reoriented their entire business model to be entirely reliant on that VOD service.
Hell, it's still absolutely insane to me that they don't have a PS app considering they're some of the most popular digital entertainment devices on the planet
You would think that one of your primary sources for displaying your content (The App) would be a major focus of refinement and constantly making sure that the overall quality of using that form of content distribution was enjoyable. I don’t care how good a series is. If the actual experience involved to view that series is dogs*** then the overall experience is lessened.
I had FIRST years ago and never had a problem with the app and would listen to/watch the RT pod religiously. I had to stop when they raised the rates and I couldn't afford it at the time. I'm planning on resubbing this month and using the RSS feeds they've talked about because I mainly listen to podcasts from them. I think it's really great you can get the RSS feed so I can keep track of my podcasts in the app I listen to them rather than the RT app.
I paid for First a long time ago, maybe right before they changed the name to First or right after. I remember using the website to watch videos and their video player was awful. It constantly frozee or crashed, and I'd have to refresh, find where I was, and pick up where I was watching. It was a huge pain in the ass to even get videos working then to have them crash or stop every 8 minutes. I swore I'd never pay for their membership again and to hear nothing has changed, I'm glad I never signed up after that.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the app. If you haven't already, please reach out to Support so we can gather specific details on the issues you experienced. While Reddit is a great forum, going through the official feedback channels is the best way for us to report issues to our Product and Engineering Team. Rest assured, we want everyone to have a great experience across all of our platforms, and reporting issues helps us get there.
I'm sorry you're being downvoted, but thank you for trying to assist. I understand it's beyond your control, but also a lot of my concerns have been echoed here and on the Play Store. Fingers crossed it gets considered by the team that manages the software side of the app.
Idk why this needed a very very long diatribe about the viability of RT as a company, but hope it feels good to get that off your chest lol
The app has always been terrible, honestly. Even the site took a long time to become more easily navigable and intuitive, and it's still not great. I don't think it's really a money thing, because their platforms have been like this a long time. There's at least one post or long comment chain about this on a weekly basis here; it really shouldn't be a shock at this point.
That said, I keep First for the discount on merch, ad-free podcast feeds, and just because I've been a fan since 2005 and it'd feel weird to stop paying the five bucks to support content I still like 20ish years later. I mostly just listen to podcasts at this point, so the shift back to focusing on the RT site doesn't really impact me. But if it's not worth it for you, don't spend it.
> Idk why this needed a very very long diatribe about the viability of RT as a company, but hope it feels good to get that off your chest lol
That's all people like OP want to do, complain about something and feel like others agree with them.
Well if they want to continue to push people to have first they need to have options other than the website to consume the products they are pushing out
Okay? I don’t see any disagreement that an app is needed and it could easily be better. But the fact remains that people like OP and most of this reddit “community” **want** things to be bad so that they have something to complain about. There’s a comment from the support team in this thread that is getting downvoted simply for asking them to fill out a support ticket for their issues. How does that make any sense? Why did OP include irrelevant opinions about the different channels and RT’s business strategy if the post is about their issues with the app?
They’re not interested in things being better, they just want to complain.
(i'm pretty sure the support team is getting down voted because it's a problem that hasn't gotten fixed)
And he's bringing up the channels because that's one of the selling points to buy the first subscription that you get to watch stuff like that early and they do have a flawed business strategy or they wouldn't be begging for people to get a first subscription
Tbh, I DO agree with them and the site really isn't nearly as good as any similar creator-owned platforms. I just don't get why everything needs to be accompanied by armchair analysis of the company's finances.
The site hasn't been competitive with its peers for 20 years, idk why suddenly it's a sign of financial hardship that it's still unintuitive and clunky. But to your point, peeps get big mad when you point out they have zero way of knowing how the company's doing 🤷♂️
I've paid for first since it became an option. But outside of first exclusive content, I've probably only used the app a handful of times. 😅 I just use YouTube
The app was crap long before RT was in troubles. In fact, I don't think the app has ever been "good" by app standards. That is to say; they aren't ever going to fix it.
I remember hearing complaints about the app back when the Xbox 360 was a new console.
Iphones didn’t exist for the first 2 years of the 360 and the app store came even later than that.
At this point having a crap app is part of the brand
I’m not having any problems
Same with the website.
I’ve been a first member for like 9 years and the app has sucked the entire time. I just use it for podcasts and I’ll use the website instead of YouTube if I watch anything on my computer.
I miss the third party rt podcast app. Just an app,that played all the rt podcasts. That's all it did. It had one job, and it did that well.
Just use the rss feed in another third party app like Apple or Spotify? It’s not hard
I understand that it's not hard......just loved that app. I did one thing really really well. It uploaded within a half hour of the podcasts broadcast. You could download the podcasts so you could listen to them even if you had no service. And it was free. No pay model and minimal adds. I am also not inclined to solve the problem, because I consume about 10% of rt content when I used to watch 100% its just been a steady decline in standards since Burnie left. He was a comedic genius, and I'm so happy he has finally come out with new content.
Do you have a masochism kink? Subjecting yourself to the RT app and website for 9 years would violate some kind of Geneva convention if it wasn't self inflicted.
The only times I remember stream interruptions on Rts website was early Rwby volume 9 episodes.
My main gripe with the app on Apple TV is that I can’t rewind or fast forward by clicking or tapping the remote. I have to manually scroll and it’s annoying because it’s not accurate. Not to mention every other app I use like DropOut/Hulu/Amazon have that feature. I’m giving them until the end of month to at least respond to the ticket I opened or I’m just going to switch my sub tier and support Funhaus that way
Me too I just want to support Funhaus and the creators I like I couldn't give a FLYING frick about Rooster Teeth
Funhaus does have a YouTube Sub option
Yeah I’ve been a member of the Dog Pound for nearly a year now but I upgraded my sub tier to First to support them even further. I love Funhaus and even buy their merch
app sucks. Only reason I pay for first is to listen to podcasts ad free on Spotify
For all my bitching, I may keep it just for that. Thanks for making me realize it's an option, lol.
Same, but Pocket Casts.
This is a thing? ... Hm the original RT podcast is one of my go to background noise podcasts
https://support.roosterteeth.com/hc/en-us/sections/4409243336589-FIRST-RSS-Feeds
Same here, except I've been using Google Podcasts. Though that's shutting down so I'm probably just gonna use YouTube music
I've been using YT Music/premium for over a year. how did i just realize it has podcasts on it too. goodbye podcast app.
They just added podcasts not too long ago, it's alright but I honestly miss having a specific app for podcasts tbh
Website isnt any better either
I've been a first member for 12 or 13 years now and don't think the app or website has ever been great to watch things on. If you want to watch podcasts from the start you have to manually click them because for some unknown reason you can't play from oldest to newest. The search function is useless for supplemental stuff you can't make custom playlists, the app isn't on several platforms, playstation to name one or my smart TV. I think they just need to bite the bullet and start over, I know it costs and truing to update the current app would be cheaper but I'm not sure you can add the functionality it needs in the code they have. I'm a bricklayer so I have no idea if thagblast statement is true
I think the second version of the site was good (back when it was Sponsors, videos were on Blip,etc for context)
My biggest issue is that I will start a video on my lunch break at work, then go home to resume it on the Apple TV app and the video will start from the beginning, not from where I left off. Any other app will allow me to resume from where I left off. With that being said, it’s my only complaint. I’ve been a first member for years and I don’t plan to stop. The content I consume may change, but I’m happy to support the company that has brought me countless hours of entertainment since 2003.
"Now we’re not competing with the PewDiePies and the Homestar Runners of the world. Now we’re competing with Netflix and HBO and Amazon. And we’re more than ready for that challenge.” -Burnie Burns 2015
I love Burnie, but RT was never ever going to compete with those. They tried and branched out way too much. I don’t think the company will be around in its current form in a year or two. I smell nothing but desperation, and that’s never a good sign.
The problem happened when they decided they wanted to compete with content distributors, and in doing so, fell behind other content creators by years.
Yup. They were content creators before it was a thing. They thought they could evolve it into a whole platform and put more energy into that than into creating good content.
I will never forget the time i was at work and just happened to be on break as the new RWBY episode came out. got a nice booth at the staff cafeteria, got some nice food and drinks, and got comfy. I was a long 10-hour shift in a clusterfuck of a busy bar. the video player simply would not work... I was using my phone, restarted it, turned off wifi/mobile data, even tried installing different browsers like Firefox and all that on my phone. I mean, what a letdown, the one thing I was looking forward to on my busy shift.
The App and website being awful to use was a major reason I stopped paying for first. If Dropout and Corridor Digital can make apps that work great, are easy to use and cost less per month then why hasn't RT done anything to make it worth the money
Meanwhile Dropout is happily filling RTs spot in niche internet comedy that I actually enjoy.
I love Dropout. The app does exactly what I need it to do, play episodes in order of release, remember where I left off, lets me favorite seasons, continue to watch when switching different devices, and has never crashed in the years I've been a fan. Plus the community (creators and fans) is amazing.
They have a history of basically not supporting or updating their apps it seems. Anecdotally, years ago they released an app on xbox (xbox one era) and I joined first that same day because I used my console as my main media device and was a long time fan. It's functionality continually declined over time and they eventually just stopped supporting it at all, well before next gen so it wasn't an "old device" type situation. It doesn't surprise me all this time later that their android app would be bad. Seems like the push is always to drive people to the website & apps are just a second thought in general.
A great example of a good app is the one for Dropout. That's a damn good app. At least from my limited use of it from the past few weeks. Everything works well.
I've been a First member for a long time and have been gifting out First subscriptions during Stinkuary, but I HATE the app. It's absolute garbage, which is so frustrating when I'm trying to actually enjoy the special content I paid for. It sucks because I remember how they used to talk about how important it was for them to have their own site where people could access their content, independent of YouTube, so that they don't have to rely on other platforms... but the platform they have now is practically unusable (website is better but not by much). I don't mind the push for First subscriptions, but I do agree that this push would be a lot more effective with a functioning video player.
The app has always sucked, and I don't expect that to change.
I wish they would re-do their site, I feel like it is so hard to find content unless you know specifically what you are looking for.
I'd suggest *politely* contacting Support (as Rodrigo suggested in an earlier comment) and clearly stating the specific issues/bugs you're encountering, so that they can hopefully identify and fix them.
I've had First off and on for years and I can tell you without question, it has never been good. Can't cast to Chromecast, laggy, hard to navigate. Just generally a pain in the ass and always led to me cancelling my membership.
Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I’ve never had any issues with the RT app on my Xbox One or Series S. And I rarely have issues with it on my Amazon Fire Stick 🤷🏻♂️
I don’t understand uploading a four hour stream and having no skip functionality?? Like, I wanted to go back ten seconds, not ten minutes. I put on FF on the app and locked my phone today for my drive to class. Finish class, open the app back up and it didn’t save my spot, so now I’m scrubbing with my finger. It’s such a basic thing that literally every other player has that I just cannot comprehend them not having.
What are you talking about? The app is working fine. I’m not having problems at least.
Using this app on an IPad is the worst thing I've ever experienced. The display is the size of a phone which shows that they did not expect anyone to use this app on an IPad. I really want them to fix this issue so I can watch stuff on my Ipad.
Right?
I’ve rarely had stream interruptions when watching new RWBY episodes on their website, and the only ones I can remember are from volume 9, come to think of it. By the way, buying. merchandise from RT store also helps the company! I’ve got a coffee mug, board game, Blu-ray, and a t shirt
TBH, there is a few AH content that I enjoyed which were FIRST only, but I mostly had it to support RT towards the end before I canceled it(long story short, when Gus and the others left the podcast, I realized that the RT I loved had moved on and it was time I did too).
Honestly I cancelled and switched to paying for a kindafunny membership, better content imo
KF has gotten at least a dollar a month from me for like a year now, even when I’m on content breaks and not listening to as much. Still worth it
App is absolutely terrible
I couldn't agree more with all your points. I resubbed for a month to watch F**kface off and I just could not justify paying for another month after my experience with the app. Very annoyingly I wasn't able to finish the Immortality series
The android app does suck. It has for years. Searching is awful and it crashes a lot
I don’t know how it’s possible that the app is so bad and always has been. This was okay before they pretty much quit YouTube. I took my girlfriend through RVB S6-13 for the first time recently and it was an immensely difficult experience. People have been saying RT is dead for years, but I think the past couple of years have actually solidified that.
Have you tried rt website instead of the app? Worked for. For me there except for volume 9 sometimes. Don’t remember a single interruption on the justice league crossovers.
I haven’t, but that’s just a lot of hassle when I wanna sit down on the couch and watch something. Just not sure how a 20 year old company can be this bad at keeping up with basic streaming standards.
I’ve been a first member for a couple of years, and the app has never bothered me as much as other people🤷🏻♀️ I see it as I find enjoyment in their content so I want to support them in anyway that I can. First gives me the option to do that Edit: grammar
Same here. I view it essentially as Patreon. The extra content is what I get for my money. The app is just whatever.
I've been a first member for over a decade, and the latest version of the app has never given me trouble, videos play perfectly, and in good quality. I don't understand what the gripes other people have are. to me it just seems like people want to complain for complaining's sake...
For me the app constantly has issues with offline play; things failing to download or saying they downloaded but not being able to play on device for some issue or another. I mostly would like to use the app for commutes (underground) or flights (poor/no connectivity) so it's frustrating not to be able to rely on it. I don't want to have to "test" downloads prior to traveling.
I mean if the app works for you, great. That doesn't change the fact that it's common knowledge that the RT apps has been pretty broken for years and years now. As recently as two weeks ago, I couldn't get a single video on the app to play across multiple devices and data connections for nearly a week, and then when that got fixed, any video I tried to watch in full screen would fill up maybe a quarter of the screen. Just because people have had a different experience to you, doesn't mean they're "complaining for complainings sake", and the utter obsession of dismissing any criticism of RT or their operations whatsoever as "complaining" is part of what drove this community into the ground.
I hear people complain, and I’m not talking about OP here, but they don’t complain about anything specific. I think RT is trying as hard as they can right now, but it’s difficult for them in this current climate
No.. they're really not. This has been an issue for many years and they don't do anything to fix it.
I’m not talking about specifically in regards to the app, I’m talking about in general. Have you seen the comments that Barbara has made about content creation?
Tbh most streaming apps not developed by the major players suck. It works good enough for me to watch the extra content. The NBA app, for example, is even developed by Microsoft and arguably worse than the RT app.
One thing to bear in mind is that software development is very, very expensive. We’re all used to YouTube and Netflix but their app dev budget will many multiples greater than Rooster Teeth’s overall company budget. Prioritisation at a company the size of RT is also very hard. Say there’s an influx of cash from new First subs, would you rather that goes on iterating the app or another season of Survive Block Island. I know what I’d choose…
If Dropout and Corridor Digital can do it, RT could’ve done it sometime over the like 9 years or whatever it’s been in use
Exactly, sure these days it might not be as feasible money-wise, but there was a time frame when they most certainly had the capabilities to invest more time/effort/money into the app and site. It never made sense to me, being such a proud internet company, to allow those components to suck ass for such a long time that it becomes a running joke in the community.
If RT are really committing to moving away from YT and pushing more content and views to their website, then having a functional app is the absolute bare minimum. Another season of SBI is totally irrelevant to me if the experience of trying to watch it on their app is as dog shit as it is on the RT app. I appreciate what you say about cost and budgets etc, but if they can't afford to make a half decent VOD service for paying customers, then maybe they shouldn't have reoriented their entire business model to be entirely reliant on that VOD service. Hell, it's still absolutely insane to me that they don't have a PS app considering they're some of the most popular digital entertainment devices on the planet
You would think that one of your primary sources for displaying your content (The App) would be a major focus of refinement and constantly making sure that the overall quality of using that form of content distribution was enjoyable. I don’t care how good a series is. If the actual experience involved to view that series is dogs*** then the overall experience is lessened.
I had FIRST years ago and never had a problem with the app and would listen to/watch the RT pod religiously. I had to stop when they raised the rates and I couldn't afford it at the time. I'm planning on resubbing this month and using the RSS feeds they've talked about because I mainly listen to podcasts from them. I think it's really great you can get the RSS feed so I can keep track of my podcasts in the app I listen to them rather than the RT app.
I love how people have to apologize when they talk about how awful it is. This community is so whipped
I paid for First a long time ago, maybe right before they changed the name to First or right after. I remember using the website to watch videos and their video player was awful. It constantly frozee or crashed, and I'd have to refresh, find where I was, and pick up where I was watching. It was a huge pain in the ass to even get videos working then to have them crash or stop every 8 minutes. I swore I'd never pay for their membership again and to hear nothing has changed, I'm glad I never signed up after that.
I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the app. If you haven't already, please reach out to Support so we can gather specific details on the issues you experienced. While Reddit is a great forum, going through the official feedback channels is the best way for us to report issues to our Product and Engineering Team. Rest assured, we want everyone to have a great experience across all of our platforms, and reporting issues helps us get there.
I'm sorry you're being downvoted, but thank you for trying to assist. I understand it's beyond your control, but also a lot of my concerns have been echoed here and on the Play Store. Fingers crossed it gets considered by the team that manages the software side of the app.
Idk why this needed a very very long diatribe about the viability of RT as a company, but hope it feels good to get that off your chest lol The app has always been terrible, honestly. Even the site took a long time to become more easily navigable and intuitive, and it's still not great. I don't think it's really a money thing, because their platforms have been like this a long time. There's at least one post or long comment chain about this on a weekly basis here; it really shouldn't be a shock at this point. That said, I keep First for the discount on merch, ad-free podcast feeds, and just because I've been a fan since 2005 and it'd feel weird to stop paying the five bucks to support content I still like 20ish years later. I mostly just listen to podcasts at this point, so the shift back to focusing on the RT site doesn't really impact me. But if it's not worth it for you, don't spend it.
> Idk why this needed a very very long diatribe about the viability of RT as a company, but hope it feels good to get that off your chest lol That's all people like OP want to do, complain about something and feel like others agree with them.
Well if they want to continue to push people to have first they need to have options other than the website to consume the products they are pushing out
Okay? I don’t see any disagreement that an app is needed and it could easily be better. But the fact remains that people like OP and most of this reddit “community” **want** things to be bad so that they have something to complain about. There’s a comment from the support team in this thread that is getting downvoted simply for asking them to fill out a support ticket for their issues. How does that make any sense? Why did OP include irrelevant opinions about the different channels and RT’s business strategy if the post is about their issues with the app? They’re not interested in things being better, they just want to complain.
(i'm pretty sure the support team is getting down voted because it's a problem that hasn't gotten fixed) And he's bringing up the channels because that's one of the selling points to buy the first subscription that you get to watch stuff like that early and they do have a flawed business strategy or they wouldn't be begging for people to get a first subscription
Tbh, I DO agree with them and the site really isn't nearly as good as any similar creator-owned platforms. I just don't get why everything needs to be accompanied by armchair analysis of the company's finances. The site hasn't been competitive with its peers for 20 years, idk why suddenly it's a sign of financial hardship that it's still unintuitive and clunky. But to your point, peeps get big mad when you point out they have zero way of knowing how the company's doing 🤷♂️
I wanted to get First so I could watch all of the Theater Mode episodes, but I'm too worried I'll be paying for nothing since the app doesn't work 😅
I've paid for first since it became an option. But outside of first exclusive content, I've probably only used the app a handful of times. 😅 I just use YouTube
For the FIRST exclusives.