For me it’s not really about demanding an ad remove on principle, just that I don’t like the break in the flow of the show. MPU is really nice to listen to straight through from the intro to the extra segment, so to suddenly get one at the end is kind of jarring. Maybe the cross-promotion would be better up front to make the rest of it have the same tone?
(Also, I already know about all the other shows, but I get that’s obviously not the case for all listeners.)
I loved Talking Sopranos when it first started. Now it’s full of ads and I stopped listening. I completely understand. I have only a handful of podcasts I listen to. MPU and The Dirtbag Diaries are the 2 that I’ve listened to since their inception. MPU has been independent, on 5by5, and now on Relay. It’s the only podcast I cared to listen to from both of these networks.
Mostly with this post. I was just trying to see if I was the only person that was aggravated by the Relay ads being added.
Random thought: If you want to promote other Relay shows to members, something in the Crossover feed might be a great way to do that. It would provide an opportunity to do something that would provide a lot more depth than you can in 30 seconds or so.
Crossover only goes to members and is already full of stuff from all our shows 
The “ad” for other Relay podcasts come at the very end of the show so I am not bothered. Like not having ads in the middle of the show and will continue to subscribe. Consider that everyone is just trying to make the economics of this work. Frankly @MacSparky and @ismh work pretty hard to give us all a good experience so I am fine and happy to support them.
Yep, but nothing that’s in there right now really gives listeners a good sense of what shows are actually like. On Fusion you call out what shows the other hosts do, but there’s not a really any in-depth exploration their shows. The member specials are deliberately a break from the regular format/content of each show and don’t give any sort of sense how the regular episodes of each show go.
Yes, this. You could have a 5-minute spot each month or something featuring one of the Relay podcasts, maybe with excerpts or highlights or something.
I subscribed when they started More Power Users to support this podcasts through the Pandemic because I want this podcast to keep going.
I’m a subscriber and am not bothered by Relay cross-promoting their own shows.
Are the links in the show notes? I looked at a couple where I thought I’d heard one and couldn’t find it.
I agree it violates the spirit of ad-free, and when I first heard one I wondered what else might break the wall of “not an ad?” If the podcast is of interest to MPU listeners, I’d like to see one or both of the hosts a guests.
I think it’s not as much an issue of “do they do it” as much as of “do they communicate ahead of time that they do it?”
It’s just like dinner planning. If you offer me a really good hamburger, I’ll enjoy it. If you offer me a really good pizza, I’ll enjoy it. But if you offer me a really good hamburger and then you hand me a pizza instead, no matter how good it is I’ll be at least a little disappointed because I was looking forward to the hamburger. 
And that goes double or triple when money is involved.
It’s all about expectations.
I don’t mind cross promotion. It is not an ad, it is in the show. Everyone does that on radio, TV, YouTube in-their-show.
The short promotion does not bother me.
It is an ad, though. The last one I heard, Stephen switched into his ad-reading voice.
I’m not going to cancel my sub over it, but it does take me out of the podcast when it happens.
Not currently a subscriber to More Power Users specifically (relay in general though), but would be really annoyed by getting an ad if I had paid for no ads. Yeah, it is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but don’t put ads in a product you are selling as “ad free”, it just comes across wrong.
The reason I pay is not for the ad free version. I am quite adept at skipping ads. A couple of quick squeezes on the AirPods Pro stem. The only time I am unable to skip ads is when I happen to be bending over to pick up dog poop at the moment an ad comes on. Which is more often than you might think – I think the dog knows what’s going on and times her actions intentionally.
I pay to support MPU, and the other podcasts for which I have subscriptions.
IMO the question is “does a cross-promotion count as an ad?” It seems like most people would say yes. I agree that if you pay for the service, then there shouldn’t be ads. Also knowing that somebody pays to subscribe would also indicate that they are voting with their money about that podcast. So, if they wanted to hear about other podcasts, they would also subscribe to those. One way to cross-promote is to drop an episode that is relevant into the subscribers feed with an intro about that podcast and episode. This would allow somebody to not up-front that they could skip it or listen to it. It would also be less annoying than a 30 second ad break.
I pretty strongly disagree that cross promotion in the same podcast network is advertising. Especially if it’s at the end of the episode. It is technically about getting paid (increasing listeners),
But saying hey, here’s this other show you might be interested in is definitely not an ad if it’s in the same network.
What Relay Network is doing is called promotion which technically is different from advertising but the benefits are similar if not the same… for the end user, it’s probably the same…
I don’t mind Relay doing this. I think I discovered the interview with the Microsoft executive through this… may be mistaken…
The issue is for people who pay for the ad free version may prefer not to hear cross promotions as well
Castro has a feature where it will ask to mark episode as played when less then 5 min is remaining… I use this feature a lot and in most cases, I do not hear the closing remarks