Exclusivity is the Antithesis to What Podcasts Were Meant to be.

I don’t have too many badges of honor in nerd-dom. One of the few that I do have is that I’ve been into podcasts since 2008. The first podcast I ever listened to was Major Nelson Radio, now The Official Xbox Podcast, hosted by Larry Hyrb at Xbox. I thought it was magical. I was able to listen to experts in a field talk for about an hour about the things that they loved and were passionate about. Lately, I’ve been somewhat down on the state of podcasting. What was once a medium that truly showed what the internet could do for a modern society, has taken a turn towards lower quality content for those of us who remember what podcasts once were, and not what they are now. 

Podcasts are published using RSS or “Really Simple Syndication”. It’s a feed built in XML that allows users and computers to take updates to that feed and display it somewhere else. For example, CNN has a stylized RSS feed here. Web professional Dave Rupert has his feed here, and that appears as straight XML. You can subscribe to these feeds and have a less vocal version of social media with the content of your choosing. What does all of this nerdom mean? Podcasts represent what the internet once was, open content that you had to seek out but were rewarded in that search. 

The issue with exclusivity. 

As we all know by now, podcasts have blown up. It’s estimated that over 100 million people listen to podcasts each month. In a way, that’s to be expected. Podcasts are so accessible in terms of creation and topics, that there is probably at least 1 podcast for everyone. I have 4 or 5 in rotation. With that popularity, comes a financial opportunity in terms of exlcusitivty. We are seeing podcasts beginning to only appear within certain networks such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The most famous being the Joe Rogan Experience going exclusive to Spotify. 

I find there to be two issues with this. The first is simply this is the antithesis of what podcasting is supposed to be. By limiting podcasts to specific networks, we remove the openness and discoverability of shows which is what leads apps like Spotify to advertise podcasts to you…even if you’re paying for a no ads experience. The second issue is exactly what we are seeing with Joe Rogan right now. If podcasts exist within a “network” and one host has guests or says things that are rude, derogatory, or just outright misinformation, then you have issues within your network among other hosts and artists. The difference between simply running a subscribe mechanism through an app to let users listen to a podcast, versus paying for that content through a subscription to a service, is very wide and can cause problems. 

What people seem to be forgetting about Joe Rogan is if Spotify were to say “ok we are not doing this deal anymore, bye”, Spotify users would likely still be able to access his podcast through the app. However, this is one of the best examples of capitalism in action. If a user didn’t want to pay for an app that also hosted podcasts they find problematic, there are other choices to find music that are all very similar. 

There are newer elements to podcasts I’m not a huge fan of. The introduction of video as a medium is one of them. However, .mp4 files can be hosted in an RSS feed and distributed the same way podcasts have always been distributed. The openness of the web, and podcasts in general, is a positive thing. If one wants to pay their favorite podcaster directly, I think that is a fantastic idea. I just don’t like that networks have to take a cut of it. 

See you on the web.