My Podcast Subscriptions in 2025

A question by my friend Bodo made me take another look at my podcast subscriptions. Maybe there is something interesting on my list for either Bodo or someone else.

I’m listening to podcasts in both English and German (which are, coincidentally, the two languages I speak). I marked the German ones with the German flag, everything else is in English.

News & Politics

My weekly German news podcast has been Lage der Nation🇩🇪 for quite a while, and I’m a plus subscriber. Unfortunately, I think it has been declining in quality for a bit now. The number of times I’ve been rolling my eyes has been steadily increasing. So I might re-evaluate that choice sometime this year.

The Ezra Klein Show is focused on the USA. It is another podcast I’m considering replacing, as the number of episodes I enjoy is slowly declining. But right now, there are still enough episodes I’m learning something from.

Grundgesetzlich🇩🇪 explains German constitutional rights in an interview format. It is published by the “Gesellschaft fuer Freiheitsrechte”, an NGO I’ve been donating to for some years now. I strongly recommend this podcast to Germans to learn about their rights.

Holger Ruft An🇩🇪 covers my media critic needs, and klima update°🇩🇪 provides me with the three most important news about the collapse of our environment every week.

Luddism

For my dose of critical takes on the IT industry, I’m listening to Tech Won’t Save Us, System Crash and Better Offline. I enjoy all three of them quite a lot, but would wish for a paid ad-free version of Better Offline, as the ads in that show are… bad. Awful. Distressing.

Other IT

I just subscribed to Urlaub im Userspace🇩🇪 which seems to be the spiritual successor to the discontinued “Focus on Linux” podcast. I certainly hope it is because that was my Linux and open-source podcast of choice that I enjoyed a lot. Linux After Dark has a random Linux-related topic every episode and is quite entertaining. If you’re into someone going extremely deep on ThinkPads and their history, then you are probably already subscribed to ThinkPad-Museum🇩🇪.

For my updates on security, I’m listening to the Passwort🇩🇪 podcast as the INNOQ Security Podcast seems to be discontinued.

Even though it is live-streamed, I’m listening to Software Architektur im Stream🇩🇪 as a podcast. It covers a lot of topics broadly related to software architecture, either as a monologue by Eberhard or as an interview (I’ve been a guest on the show multiple times).

For web stuff, I’m subscribed to Off the Main Thread, but it feels like this has been discontinued. So I’m currently trying ShopTalk instead. I’m also listening to Igalia Chats, and personally enjoy it more than ShopTalk.

I’m also picking single episodes from Developer Voices if the topic sounds interesting to me.

Miscellaneous

For my dose of cycling and outdoor, I’m listening to Dima’s Like a Pro and Simon’s Tour de Everywhere. Both release very infrequently, but I enjoy every single episode.

Maintenance Phase debunks (mainly) wellness and weight loss topics. I already learned tons from that show – highly recommended.

For boardgame nerdery, I’m listening to my friend Dirk’s BGT🇩🇪 podcast. Apart from being a really great podcast, it is also a nice community both on- and offline.

Recommendations

If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Given that I’m listening to every episode of the podcasts listed above (except The Ezra Klein Show and Developer Voices), I’m already at the maximum of subscriptions for my listening time¹, so it would need to replace one of the above.

Footnotes