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The open web is dead. It's likely Rogan would have been banned from YouTube and Apple Podcasts had he not moved to Spotify. He could have moved to tiny platfor

The open web is dead. It's likely Rogan would have been banned from YouTube and Apple Podcasts had he not moved to Spotify. He could have moved to tiny platforms like Odysee or Rokfin that would likely have poor retention rates, or just relied on people adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that. The "death of the open web" problem isn't creators somehow consistently choosing to empower companies that keep hurting them. Users are doing that, and creators follow. Imagine Tim Ferriss gets banned from all "non-open web" platforms today: podcast app indexes, Google Search, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify. We'll imagine he gets banned for zero reason: did nothing wrong, did nothing different, isn't any intrinsically less relevant or popular than he was yesterday. What's left is his website (if you remember the URL), and newsletter if you're already subscribed. You can add his podcast URL to your podcast app, but his podcast doesn't appear in Search. How much of his reach does he lose, overnight? 50%? 75%? Google Search isn't the "open web", and if they don't list you, you don't exist. How can one creator fix that?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CodeGlitch 5y ago
> It's likely Rogan would have been banned from YouTube and Apple Podcasts had he not moved to Spotify. I'm not so sure. Just put the non controversial episodes on YouTube, then link and advertise the "problematic" episodes that are only available on your own platform. This is what the Lotus Eaters do: https://www.lotuseaters.com https://www.lotuseaters.com
- thrown_22 5y ago
  - leephillips 5y ago
    Do you have an example of someone who was banned in early 2020, or any time, for supporting masks?
    - nutshell89 5y ago
      In early 2020, NYC transit operators were barred from wearing masks and the MTA reasoned that there was not federal or state policy at the time recommending mask usage. At the time, the surgeon general cautioned the general public to stop buying masks because, "they had not been proven effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus." > https://gothamist.com/news/subway-train-operator-says-mta-wont-let-him-wear-respiratory-mask-because-public-perception https://gothamist.com/news/subway-train-operator-says-mta-wo...
      - leephillips 5y ago
        Interesting to know, but not examples of banning for advocating the use of masks.
  - chillage 5y ago
    Sorry I agree with the overall sentiment that party line can shift with time unpredictably, but who had been banned in early 2020 for supporting masks? As I recall people socially self imposed masks in a matter of just a couple weeks early in the pandemic, in North America at least, and nobody would have been banned for it.
    - thrown_22 5y ago
      - malloryerik 5y ago
        I have a bit of a hard time just taking that on faith from a throwaway account's two-word sentence without reference to who, where, when, or how.
        thrown_22 5y ago
        malloryerik 5y ago
        Is that your honest, good faith interpretation of what I wrote?
        thrown_22 5y ago
        What other one is there? The social media sites offload their moderation to volunteer tin pot dictators or third world sweat shops.
    - leppr 5y ago
      This issue needs thorough investigative work, to reconstruct an objective timeline. But as far as I remember it, mask wearing was seen first as being something for paranoid conspiracy theorists, then selfish people, then the narrative was reversed. Experts were invited on primetime TV to say masks are not recommended to the general public. I distinctly remember arguing with educated people at work, online, with relatives, that masks should be worn in enclosed public places, months deep into the pandemic. We would see old people, barely managing to walk, not wear masks while going grocery shopping, because government experts told them they didn't need to. All the while China was in total lockdown and victim counts exploding. I fear most people would prefer to forget because they played a part in it and it makes them feel dumb. We might get collective amnesia, ensuring this part of the story never reaches the history books. We shouldn't be ashamed though, we've all been victims of misinformation and cultish behavior at one point, the important thing is to draw lessons from it.
  - habibur 5y ago
    It's worse under the authoritative government where I live. Multiple people including doctors were arrested by police and beaten up in custody for saying online of the dangers of covid in early 2020. And then then in late 2020 these same government organizations were beating people up again for saying online that it wasn't.
bambax 5y ago
> or just relied on people adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that But why would nobody do that? How hard is it? Maybe it's too much trouble for something you don't care about, but for a content you enjoy, doing one copy-paste isn't very difficult? Personally I resent Spotify for the whole move to podcasts. There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) Instead they choose to publish recordings of guys talking -- not experts in any subject, but random guys who are pretty ignorant of everything, and who, because they don't know anything, tend to have a very political conversation. This isn't art. This is just another way of wasting time. As a result, Spotify is now in the business of policing content. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
- iso1210 5y ago
  I remember a few years ago that Spotify made a big deal about "not censoring explicit songs" and not even giving me the option, so if I had music playing randomly at some point it would blast out some curse-laden song while I'm driving with the kids. I'm far more concerned with the terrible search function which puts all sorts of user created crap at the top that pretends to be what it's not, rather than album names.
  - pm90 5y ago
    Not sure if I agree that being exposed to explicit content sometimes as a child is on the same level of damage as constant vaccine misinformation/disinformation.
    - toraway1234 5y ago
      Wow
- rpastuszak 5y ago
  > There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) Correct, but: 1. Everyone wants to be the Netflix of podcasts. 2. It's premium advertising real estate. The ad formats you can chuck into a podcast have higher CPM. Caveat re 2.: I'm not sure how much advertising contributes to Spotify revenue, so take this one with a grain of salt. It used to be the next hot thing in adtech when I worked in the industry before 2021. Remember: why charge the user directly, when you can charge them indirectly using a bunch of random middlemen (DAAST, VAST, potato, potahtoh)! > Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Example of a slightly less stupid* game: The Apple Podcasts app. The UX is mediocre, but the ability to pay for series/bundles is something I'd like to see more. Just let me pay for the content. As much as podcast content can be decoupled from the user agent, I'd like to see the same done with payments. * or differently stupid
picsao 5y ago
The death of the open web is actually the vanishing of the self educated power user culture.
- concinds 5y ago
  Exactly. People here vastly overestimate how technical and motivated the average user is. Trump's banned on practically all platforms. How many of his fans added his RSS to their app? (Wait, they don't use RSS apps). His only platform is now his website, where he publishes blog posts. Did his fans follow him to the "open web"? Nope. > Trump’s Website Traffic Dove a Yuge 99% Year Over Year > DonaldJTrump.com went from 14 million unique visitors in April 2020 to just 161,000 in April 2021 https://www.thewrap.com/trump-website-comscore-decline/ https://www.thewrap.com/trump-website-comscore-decline/
  - carry_bit 5y ago
    His blog posts are reposted on multiple other platforms. If you can already see all of those posts on your favorite platform, what incentive do you have to visit the actual website?
andreskytt 5y ago
“Nobody would do that“ Back in the day people did exactly that.
- hn_version_0023 5y ago
  Today isn’t yesterday; things change. I agree that no one would make the effort today. Money killed (or is in the process of killing) podcasting.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    That can’t possibly be. His audience, like so many other niche groups that gather around conspiracy theories, sure must be the smartest people. They are on to something we, sheeple, haven’t seen yet.
  - DebtDeflation 5y ago
    >Today isn’t yesterday Unfortunately, this is the case. As someone who graduated uni in 1995, I pine (lol) for the days where the internet was largely Usenet, IRC, and email listservs followed by the early days of the web. Social media and especially social media apps on mobile devices completely ruined it.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >Money killed (or is in the process of killing) podcasting. I see a whole lot of podcasts out there. They're mostly either something that someone does on the side either for fun or as part of their jobs or they're ad supported. (Honestly, I'm often a bit surprised that modest advertising supports obviously sizable staffs--even if I'm sure no one is getting rich.)
    - hn_version_0023 5y ago
      You’re not wrong. For me, the ads read by the podcasters themselves killed it for me. I really find the idea of “monetizing” every last thing extremely distasteful. YMMV.
- 5y ago
throw3838 5y ago
Monolithic platforms are dead. More and more creators will take lesson and put their content under their own brand. Youtbe will be just "dump host" embedded from other domain!
- simonh 5y ago
  Ive seen that prediction regularly for 20 years. Still waiting.
  - throw3838 5y ago
    Spotify paid N millions for Joe Rogan, they just deleted him. He can still do podcasting under his brand. Seems like win for him.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > He can still do podcasting under his brand Unless Spotify hired a potato for counsel, no, Rogan probably can’t do that.
    - simonh 5y ago
      They withdrew some of his back catalogue from the download list. That’s all. They’re still publishing his podcast and he’s still under contract.
Alex3917 5y ago
> The open web is dead. As the big money moves into chasing the metaverse, we may get another big wave of innovation in the open web space in the next five years or so.
polote 5y ago
> What's left is his website (if you remember the URL) It's only a matter of time before Google Chrome bans viewing url that Google considers harmful, as they already do with phishing URL
- m-s 5y ago
  You can still click through the phishing warning
- SquareWheel 5y ago
  They don't block phishing URLs. They put up a warning screen, but you are still free to skip it and view the page. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020 https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020
- leppr 5y ago
  Then use another browser.
rbanffy 5y ago
> The open web is dead. Spotify is NOT the open web. Rogan can host the audio files on his own site. That’s the open web. Spotify is under no obligation to offer him or anyone any sort of service if they don’t want to.
- scrubs 5y ago
  Right? I mean, good lord the amount of blabbering that end runs the obvious is annoying. Setup your own. Move on. Maybe Joe's bigger problem is he talks too much. He ought to spend time thinking about his business not seeing himself as a celebrity. You know, in a lot of places, stupidity is not well tolerated. And Joe? Maybe think about something to say. Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr (boxer eg Ali), MLK, Federal papers, Shakespeare, Voltaire are remembered. In the daily spoken world, you'll accumulate many data points. Eventually turn to analysis, reflection, meaning. Cause if you don't? I can still go back to the good guys above or merely talk to your guests myself. And we'll move on.
  - jack_pp 5y ago
    That's like saying you should divorce after the first fight or argument. A contract has been signed for a lot of money, 2 years a business relationship has been working fine for both parties and then the shit storm happens. You think all the talk right now is because he sees himself as a celebrity? Or because it makes no rational sense to just completely end his ties with spotify or for spotify to end their ties with him at the first signs of pressure from the social justice machine?
    - scrubs 5y ago
      The net is open if you have know-how beyond booking guest talent oneself or through a 3rd party e.g. booking agent if you understand something about the tech that gets your product out. That was the position I agreed with. Why? 'cause it's right.
      - jack_pp 5y ago
        The net is open but there's a question of how easy or even if it is possible to gain an audience comparable to what the "closed" web offers. If you don't gain popularity then it is not as easy to get high value guests in the first place because those too may seek a big audience or give more value to venues that offer it so I'm not sure I get what your point is after all.
ericmay 5y ago
I’m not sure he would have been banned. I mean Bret Weinstein is still publishing isn’t he? And that’s without talking about lots of other sketchy podcasts that have good followings and haven’t been banned.
johannes1234321 5y ago
> adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that. This is easy, they just have to put a widget tile the pod love subscribe button on their site, which makes it relatively easy for the user (if they know which podcast app they are using) https://subscribe-button.podlove.org/ https://subscribe-button.podlove.org/
chrisrhoden 5y ago
> or just relied on people adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that. You mean by clicking a link on his website? How likely is it that google would block joe rogan's website from search results for joe rogan? I feel like people keep dodging a central issue here - joe rogan is not an independent being silenced on the open web by centralized platforms - he effectively sold the show to one of the platforms. They decide what happens with it (specifics of the terms of their agreement notwithstanding). this isn't the first controversial audio programming on the internet, but it is the first one that is effectively owned by one of the listening platforms that actually has the power to do something without wading into unfathomably complicated waters, if they want to. that they (until today?) seemed not to want to - or to pretend that their relationship to the show is the same as twitter's relationship to me - is what is keeping this in the news. To be 100% clear - it's not obvious to me what anyone should do in this case; joe, spotify, etc. I have my own opinions about the cost / benefit on the content but I also know enough to expect that things are probably more complicated than the popular narrative I have access to. What I do know for sure is that Joe would have more control of his show's destiny, not less, if he had decided to keep distributing in a way that did not give a single entity complete control over whether a given piece of content could be distributed at all.
fumar 5y ago
How is the open web dead? Are you saying that private companies acting in their benefit hurts the open web? You can still create any website or any content you desire who anyone can access. The open web didn’t provide reach by default. That is why directories sprang up followed by search engines. If anything the open web was easier to navigate 25 years ago and heavily reliant on word of mouth.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

CodeGlitch 5y ago

> It's likely Rogan would have been banned from YouTube and Apple Podcasts had he not moved to Spotify. I'm not so sure. Just put the non controversial episodes on YouTube, then link and advertise the "problematic" episodes that are only available on your own platform. This is what the Lotus Eaters do: https://www.lotuseaters.com https://www.lotuseaters.com

thrown_22 5y ago
- leephillips 5y ago
  Do you have an example of someone who was banned in early 2020, or any time, for supporting masks?
  - nutshell89 5y ago
    In early 2020, NYC transit operators were barred from wearing masks and the MTA reasoned that there was not federal or state policy at the time recommending mask usage. At the time, the surgeon general cautioned the general public to stop buying masks because, "they had not been proven effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus." > https://gothamist.com/news/subway-train-operator-says-mta-wont-let-him-wear-respiratory-mask-because-public-perception https://gothamist.com/news/subway-train-operator-says-mta-wo...
    - leephillips 5y ago
      Interesting to know, but not examples of banning for advocating the use of masks.
- chillage 5y ago
  Sorry I agree with the overall sentiment that party line can shift with time unpredictably, but who had been banned in early 2020 for supporting masks? As I recall people socially self imposed masks in a matter of just a couple weeks early in the pandemic, in North America at least, and nobody would have been banned for it.
  - thrown_22 5y ago
    - malloryerik 5y ago
      I have a bit of a hard time just taking that on faith from a throwaway account's two-word sentence without reference to who, where, when, or how.
      - thrown_22 5y ago
        malloryerik 5y ago
        Is that your honest, good faith interpretation of what I wrote?
        thrown_22 5y ago
        What other one is there? The social media sites offload their moderation to volunteer tin pot dictators or third world sweat shops.
  - leppr 5y ago
    This issue needs thorough investigative work, to reconstruct an objective timeline. But as far as I remember it, mask wearing was seen first as being something for paranoid conspiracy theorists, then selfish people, then the narrative was reversed. Experts were invited on primetime TV to say masks are not recommended to the general public. I distinctly remember arguing with educated people at work, online, with relatives, that masks should be worn in enclosed public places, months deep into the pandemic. We would see old people, barely managing to walk, not wear masks while going grocery shopping, because government experts told them they didn't need to. All the while China was in total lockdown and victim counts exploding. I fear most people would prefer to forget because they played a part in it and it makes them feel dumb. We might get collective amnesia, ensuring this part of the story never reaches the history books. We shouldn't be ashamed though, we've all been victims of misinformation and cultish behavior at one point, the important thing is to draw lessons from it.
- habibur 5y ago
  It's worse under the authoritative government where I live. Multiple people including doctors were arrested by police and beaten up in custody for saying online of the dangers of covid in early 2020. And then then in late 2020 these same government organizations were beating people up again for saying online that it wasn't.

bambax 5y ago

> or just relied on people adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that But why would nobody do that? How hard is it? Maybe it's too much trouble for something you don't care about, but for a content you enjoy, doing one copy-paste isn't very difficult? Personally I resent Spotify for the whole move to podcasts. There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) Instead they choose to publish recordings of guys talking -- not experts in any subject, but random guys who are pretty ignorant of everything, and who, because they don't know anything, tend to have a very political conversation. This isn't art. This is just another way of wasting time. As a result, Spotify is now in the business of policing content. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

iso1210 5y ago
I remember a few years ago that Spotify made a big deal about "not censoring explicit songs" and not even giving me the option, so if I had music playing randomly at some point it would blast out some curse-laden song while I'm driving with the kids. I'm far more concerned with the terrible search function which puts all sorts of user created crap at the top that pretends to be what it's not, rather than album names.
- pm90 5y ago
  Not sure if I agree that being exposed to explicit content sometimes as a child is on the same level of damage as constant vaccine misinformation/disinformation.
  - toraway1234 5y ago
    Wow
rpastuszak 5y ago
> There is still so much to do with music (streaming quality, music videos, lyrics, chords...) Correct, but: 1. Everyone wants to be the Netflix of podcasts. 2. It's premium advertising real estate. The ad formats you can chuck into a podcast have higher CPM. Caveat re 2.: I'm not sure how much advertising contributes to Spotify revenue, so take this one with a grain of salt. It used to be the next hot thing in adtech when I worked in the industry before 2021. Remember: why charge the user directly, when you can charge them indirectly using a bunch of random middlemen (DAAST, VAST, potato, potahtoh)! > Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Example of a slightly less stupid* game: The Apple Podcasts app. The UX is mediocre, but the ability to pay for series/bundles is something I'd like to see more. Just let me pay for the content. As much as podcast content can be decoupled from the user agent, I'd like to see the same done with payments. * or differently stupid

picsao 5y ago

The death of the open web is actually the vanishing of the self educated power user culture.

concinds 5y ago
Exactly. People here vastly overestimate how technical and motivated the average user is. Trump's banned on practically all platforms. How many of his fans added his RSS to their app? (Wait, they don't use RSS apps). His only platform is now his website, where he publishes blog posts. Did his fans follow him to the "open web"? Nope. > Trump’s Website Traffic Dove a Yuge 99% Year Over Year > DonaldJTrump.com went from 14 million unique visitors in April 2020 to just 161,000 in April 2021 https://www.thewrap.com/trump-website-comscore-decline/ https://www.thewrap.com/trump-website-comscore-decline/
- carry_bit 5y ago
  His blog posts are reposted on multiple other platforms. If you can already see all of those posts on your favorite platform, what incentive do you have to visit the actual website?

andreskytt 5y ago

“Nobody would do that“ Back in the day people did exactly that.

hn_version_0023 5y ago
Today isn’t yesterday; things change. I agree that no one would make the effort today. Money killed (or is in the process of killing) podcasting.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  That can’t possibly be. His audience, like so many other niche groups that gather around conspiracy theories, sure must be the smartest people. They are on to something we, sheeple, haven’t seen yet.
- DebtDeflation 5y ago
  >Today isn’t yesterday Unfortunately, this is the case. As someone who graduated uni in 1995, I pine (lol) for the days where the internet was largely Usenet, IRC, and email listservs followed by the early days of the web. Social media and especially social media apps on mobile devices completely ruined it.
- ghaff 5y ago
  >Money killed (or is in the process of killing) podcasting. I see a whole lot of podcasts out there. They're mostly either something that someone does on the side either for fun or as part of their jobs or they're ad supported. (Honestly, I'm often a bit surprised that modest advertising supports obviously sizable staffs--even if I'm sure no one is getting rich.)
  - hn_version_0023 5y ago
    You’re not wrong. For me, the ads read by the podcasters themselves killed it for me. I really find the idea of “monetizing” every last thing extremely distasteful. YMMV.
5y ago

throw3838 5y ago

Monolithic platforms are dead. More and more creators will take lesson and put their content under their own brand. Youtbe will be just "dump host" embedded from other domain!

simonh 5y ago
Ive seen that prediction regularly for 20 years. Still waiting.
- throw3838 5y ago
  Spotify paid N millions for Joe Rogan, they just deleted him. He can still do podcasting under his brand. Seems like win for him.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > He can still do podcasting under his brand Unless Spotify hired a potato for counsel, no, Rogan probably can’t do that.
  - simonh 5y ago
    They withdrew some of his back catalogue from the download list. That’s all. They’re still publishing his podcast and he’s still under contract.

Alex3917 5y ago

> The open web is dead. As the big money moves into chasing the metaverse, we may get another big wave of innovation in the open web space in the next five years or so.

polote 5y ago

> What's left is his website (if you remember the URL) It's only a matter of time before Google Chrome bans viewing url that Google considers harmful, as they already do with phishing URL

m-s 5y ago
You can still click through the phishing warning
SquareWheel 5y ago
They don't block phishing URLs. They put up a warning screen, but you are still free to skip it and view the page. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020 https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/99020
leppr 5y ago
Then use another browser.

rbanffy 5y ago

> The open web is dead. Spotify is NOT the open web. Rogan can host the audio files on his own site. That’s the open web. Spotify is under no obligation to offer him or anyone any sort of service if they don’t want to.

scrubs 5y ago
Right? I mean, good lord the amount of blabbering that end runs the obvious is annoying. Setup your own. Move on. Maybe Joe's bigger problem is he talks too much. He ought to spend time thinking about his business not seeing himself as a celebrity. You know, in a lot of places, stupidity is not well tolerated. And Joe? Maybe think about something to say. Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr (boxer eg Ali), MLK, Federal papers, Shakespeare, Voltaire are remembered. In the daily spoken world, you'll accumulate many data points. Eventually turn to analysis, reflection, meaning. Cause if you don't? I can still go back to the good guys above or merely talk to your guests myself. And we'll move on.
- jack_pp 5y ago
  That's like saying you should divorce after the first fight or argument. A contract has been signed for a lot of money, 2 years a business relationship has been working fine for both parties and then the shit storm happens. You think all the talk right now is because he sees himself as a celebrity? Or because it makes no rational sense to just completely end his ties with spotify or for spotify to end their ties with him at the first signs of pressure from the social justice machine?
  - scrubs 5y ago
    The net is open if you have know-how beyond booking guest talent oneself or through a 3rd party e.g. booking agent if you understand something about the tech that gets your product out. That was the position I agreed with. Why? 'cause it's right.
    - jack_pp 5y ago
      The net is open but there's a question of how easy or even if it is possible to gain an audience comparable to what the "closed" web offers. If you don't gain popularity then it is not as easy to get high value guests in the first place because those too may seek a big audience or give more value to venues that offer it so I'm not sure I get what your point is after all.

ericmay 5y ago

I’m not sure he would have been banned. I mean Bret Weinstein is still publishing isn’t he? And that’s without talking about lots of other sketchy podcasts that have good followings and haven’t been banned.

johannes1234321 5y ago

> adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that. This is easy, they just have to put a widget tile the pod love subscribe button on their site, which makes it relatively easy for the user (if they know which podcast app they are using) https://subscribe-button.podlove.org/ https://subscribe-button.podlove.org/

chrisrhoden 5y ago

> or just relied on people adding his URL manually to Apple Podcasts, but come on. Nobody would do that. You mean by clicking a link on his website? How likely is it that google would block joe rogan's website from search results for joe rogan? I feel like people keep dodging a central issue here - joe rogan is not an independent being silenced on the open web by centralized platforms - he effectively sold the show to one of the platforms. They decide what happens with it (specifics of the terms of their agreement notwithstanding). this isn't the first controversial audio programming on the internet, but it is the first one that is effectively owned by one of the listening platforms that actually has the power to do something without wading into unfathomably complicated waters, if they want to. that they (until today?) seemed not to want to - or to pretend that their relationship to the show is the same as twitter's relationship to me - is what is keeping this in the news. To be 100% clear - it's not obvious to me what anyone should do in this case; joe, spotify, etc. I have my own opinions about the cost / benefit on the content but I also know enough to expect that things are probably more complicated than the popular narrative I have access to. What I do know for sure is that Joe would have more control of his show's destiny, not less, if he had decided to keep distributing in a way that did not give a single entity complete control over whether a given piece of content could be distributed at all.

fumar 5y ago

How is the open web dead? Are you saying that private companies acting in their benefit hurts the open web? You can still create any website or any content you desire who anyone can access. The open web didn’t provide reach by default. That is why directories sprang up followed by search engines. If anything the open web was easier to navigate 25 years ago and heavily reliant on word of mouth.