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I really dislike this whole initiative and much prefer the patreon model. One reason of course might be that i am listening to Jupiter Broadcast and Chris push

I really dislike this whole initiative and much prefer the patreon model. One reason of course might be that i am listening to Jupiter Broadcast and Chris pushes this stuff hard, really annoying me with the constant talk about lightning and especially the boosts, which seem to take over half the show, because somehow he seems not to realize that the problem he has in getting regular supporters is the insane price he asks (last i looked about $2,50 per episode), but likes to give everyone several minutes of the show who sent him 20 cents. But I think my misgivings go further than that and i am especially concerned about this taking over podcasts or even open source, because while I do understand that people need to eat, I think these two ecosystems especially thrive because so many people contribute to them without profit being their first motive. I would not ask people to do work for free, but I often find that that when profit comes into it, quality starts to suffer and ideals get lost. Sure, lightning is in some ways similar to patreon etc. because it might still be user financed, but I feel the unpredictability of getting funds, the more attention focused model, will have similar effects on creators than other platforms with similar models do and I am mostly not fond of this.

teekert 4y ago
Chris indeed pushes it hard, I think indeed too hard, I agree. But it's reducing and moving to other shows (like OfficeHours.hair). To him this is the response to centralization of podcasting and I see that. As a member (I do 8$ a month, supporting 1 show but listen to all) I also see the imbalance in the attention that 2ct boosts get. It will go 1 of 2 ways I guess: 1) Boosts become the main income and keep getting attention (but at some cutoff like with NoAgenda donations. 2) Boosts remain a minor part and the attention decreases. If I were you I'd sit it out and let Chris try. I do like putting 100$ every (half?) year or so in my podcast app and letting the app distribute it over everything I listen to. But that's also because I'm at an age where I have disposable income. I pay for the membership to get the ads out of my fav podcast.
- Grumbledour 4y ago
  You are right and i should not even have mentioned him, because i don't support him (though i wanted to once) and so really have no grounds to complain. I let my annoyance get the better of me and it seems just mean now when i reread it. It also just undermines my skepticism and dislike of the podcasts 2.0 thing, which should have been my main point.
  - teekert 4y ago
    Well, fwiw, imho it's good criticism and skepticism is warranted and I agree with it. But it's early days. I always warn here on HN that we should not throw the baby away with the bathwater, meaning, don't kill (or over-regulate) blockchain before it can grow into something nice (from the monster it is now). Imho these are the seeds of something nice, but it's not there yet. I can feel it coming though, because of things like Podcasting 2.0. But again, podcasting 2.0 also enables (as you probably heard many times by now ;)) life streams right in the podcast app. It just displays a badge that your fav podcast is now life-streaming and you can participate. I think that is just really cool. Using the blockchain again though, you can make instant donations through BTC lightning, and have your value 4 value boosts live-read as you listen. I mean, that is at least a bit cool right? The equivalent of throwing some cash... Hmm, this is going in the wrong direction again...
    - hnthrow1010 4y ago
      It's not still early days. Bitcoin was created 13 years ago, it was useless for payments back then and it's still useless for payments now. Every direction that anyone takes it will be in the direction of some kind of pure money-making thing, usually in the form of a ponzi or pyramid scheme. This has happened over and over again for 13 years. There's simply no one else interested in building on this because everyone else can see that the technology is useless. The only way the scheme even works is because the miners are continually promised profits just for doing the useless "work" of running a node. If you take that away, you're left with an ordinary distributed database, and you can't use that to get VCs all excited with buzzwords and promises of instant profit, so nobody in the bubble does it. We should absolutely throw away the bathwater. There's no baby. I'll say it right out. Cryptocurrency should be completely banned by every country on the planet. They have no purpose that isn't outright fraud and theft. Everything described in Podcasting 2.0 can be done with regular old Web 2.0 technology, and it can be done more efficiently that way too. Edit to those downvoting: I will gladly retract this entire comment if you can demonstrate a single real, non-fraudulent usage of blockchains. I've been asking this for years and never gotten a straight answer. Everything is always "just around the corner" but every time I look around the corner all I see is more fraud and scams. If you really think there's something salvageable here, then let blockchains live on as a theoretical research project until somebody figures it out. In the meantime, please stop encouraging the general public to put their money into this. It's irresponsible to raise money this way.
- aliqot 4y ago
  I stopped listening out of guilt bc I didn't want to use it.
  - CrazyPyroLinux 4y ago
    You're free to do what you want of course, but that's a shame. So many great shows.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  If you want to see what "Boost" (donation) related content ends up looking like, look to popular twitch streamers. It's not great for those who want valuable and interesting content, and instead favors those who develop parasocial relationships and are addicted to getting their favorite personality to pretend to care about them.
ghaff 4y ago
I'd put open source in a different category. Most people who make a reasonable living doing open source do so because a company is paying them to do so as their day job. There are certainly exceptions but, for most, writing (non-custom) software, writing books/articles/podcasts/video mostly works as either strictly a hobby or as something a company is paying them a salary to work on--at least in part.
adamrezich 4y ago
why should content creators have to go through a centralized website like Patreon in order to get value from their consumers, giving Patreon a cut in the process? sure it's (for now) more straightforward for end-users, but as a content creator you're locking yourself into the Patreon Platform, you're building (at least some subset of) your content and your business around it being specifically "Patreon content". I'm generally wary of anything cryptocurrency but Podcasting 2.0 seems like an absolutely solid use-case of Bitcoin and Lightning—anything that helps to prevent centralized platform lock-in for content creators should be applauded!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > why should content creators have to go through a centralized website like Patreon in order to get value from their consumers, giving Patreon a cut in the process? sure it's (for now) more straightforward for end-users… You answered your own question, but there's also no reason to use a "centralized website" (i.e. a 3rd-party service) if it doesn't add value. You just handle the subs yourself and provide a unique feed URL in return.
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    sure, if you want your podcast's business model to be "you must pay to access this content." it has been argued that this is not the best business model for a podcast, as you're either locking out your entire audience until they decide to start paying, or if you go for the "regular podcast is free but Paid Members get access to additional content" model, then you're producing content that only a fraction of your audience gets to experience. if you're doing a weekly show with an additional bonus paid weekly show, this can lead to situations where something is discussed at length on the the bonus paid show, and then referenced on the free show, leaving unpaid members in the dark as to wtf you're talking about. this is the traditional model of subscription-based content, but Podcasting 2.0 is based upon the "value-for-value" idea, where listeners are encouraged to willingly give money to support the show, possibly in exchange for a shout-out (akin to YouTube "Superchats") or something like that. the model sounds unintuitive, but it has sustained No Agenda since the late '00s, and other shows as well. another podcast I tune into every week and love does the Patreon thing. they do a free, public weekly show, and an additional bonus show only for paid Patreon subscribers. I pay them through Patreon (who takes a cut) for the privilege of accessing a link to an unlisted YouTube video each week to watch the bonus show (which they explicitly refer to as a "bonus Patreon podcast" in the show itself! why intertwine your brand with Patreon like this?!). each week the bonus show gets less than 100 views, yet the cohosts go out of their way to record an additional 30-40 minute show just for these under-100 viewers. this does not seem like a sound business strategy to me compared to value-for-value.

teekert 4y ago

Chris indeed pushes it hard, I think indeed too hard, I agree. But it's reducing and moving to other shows (like OfficeHours.hair). To him this is the response to centralization of podcasting and I see that. As a member (I do 8$ a month, supporting 1 show but listen to all) I also see the imbalance in the attention that 2ct boosts get. It will go 1 of 2 ways I guess: 1) Boosts become the main income and keep getting attention (but at some cutoff like with NoAgenda donations. 2) Boosts remain a minor part and the attention decreases. If I were you I'd sit it out and let Chris try. I do like putting 100$ every (half?) year or so in my podcast app and letting the app distribute it over everything I listen to. But that's also because I'm at an age where I have disposable income. I pay for the membership to get the ads out of my fav podcast.

Grumbledour 4y ago
You are right and i should not even have mentioned him, because i don't support him (though i wanted to once) and so really have no grounds to complain. I let my annoyance get the better of me and it seems just mean now when i reread it. It also just undermines my skepticism and dislike of the podcasts 2.0 thing, which should have been my main point.
- teekert 4y ago
  Well, fwiw, imho it's good criticism and skepticism is warranted and I agree with it. But it's early days. I always warn here on HN that we should not throw the baby away with the bathwater, meaning, don't kill (or over-regulate) blockchain before it can grow into something nice (from the monster it is now). Imho these are the seeds of something nice, but it's not there yet. I can feel it coming though, because of things like Podcasting 2.0. But again, podcasting 2.0 also enables (as you probably heard many times by now ;)) life streams right in the podcast app. It just displays a badge that your fav podcast is now life-streaming and you can participate. I think that is just really cool. Using the blockchain again though, you can make instant donations through BTC lightning, and have your value 4 value boosts live-read as you listen. I mean, that is at least a bit cool right? The equivalent of throwing some cash... Hmm, this is going in the wrong direction again...
  - hnthrow1010 4y ago
    It's not still early days. Bitcoin was created 13 years ago, it was useless for payments back then and it's still useless for payments now. Every direction that anyone takes it will be in the direction of some kind of pure money-making thing, usually in the form of a ponzi or pyramid scheme. This has happened over and over again for 13 years. There's simply no one else interested in building on this because everyone else can see that the technology is useless. The only way the scheme even works is because the miners are continually promised profits just for doing the useless "work" of running a node. If you take that away, you're left with an ordinary distributed database, and you can't use that to get VCs all excited with buzzwords and promises of instant profit, so nobody in the bubble does it. We should absolutely throw away the bathwater. There's no baby. I'll say it right out. Cryptocurrency should be completely banned by every country on the planet. They have no purpose that isn't outright fraud and theft. Everything described in Podcasting 2.0 can be done with regular old Web 2.0 technology, and it can be done more efficiently that way too. Edit to those downvoting: I will gladly retract this entire comment if you can demonstrate a single real, non-fraudulent usage of blockchains. I've been asking this for years and never gotten a straight answer. Everything is always "just around the corner" but every time I look around the corner all I see is more fraud and scams. If you really think there's something salvageable here, then let blockchains live on as a theoretical research project until somebody figures it out. In the meantime, please stop encouraging the general public to put their money into this. It's irresponsible to raise money this way.
aliqot 4y ago
I stopped listening out of guilt bc I didn't want to use it.
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y ago
  You're free to do what you want of course, but that's a shame. So many great shows.
mrguyorama 4y ago
If you want to see what "Boost" (donation) related content ends up looking like, look to popular twitch streamers. It's not great for those who want valuable and interesting content, and instead favors those who develop parasocial relationships and are addicted to getting their favorite personality to pretend to care about them.

ghaff 4y ago

I'd put open source in a different category. Most people who make a reasonable living doing open source do so because a company is paying them to do so as their day job. There are certainly exceptions but, for most, writing (non-custom) software, writing books/articles/podcasts/video mostly works as either strictly a hobby or as something a company is paying them a salary to work on--at least in part.

adamrezich 4y ago

why should content creators have to go through a centralized website like Patreon in order to get value from their consumers, giving Patreon a cut in the process? sure it's (for now) more straightforward for end-users, but as a content creator you're locking yourself into the Patreon Platform, you're building (at least some subset of) your content and your business around it being specifically "Patreon content". I'm generally wary of anything cryptocurrency but Podcasting 2.0 seems like an absolutely solid use-case of Bitcoin and Lightning—anything that helps to prevent centralized platform lock-in for content creators should be applauded!

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
CharlesW 4y ago
> why should content creators have to go through a centralized website like Patreon in order to get value from their consumers, giving Patreon a cut in the process? sure it's (for now) more straightforward for end-users… You answered your own question, but there's also no reason to use a "centralized website" (i.e. a 3rd-party service) if it doesn't add value. You just handle the subs yourself and provide a unique feed URL in return.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  sure, if you want your podcast's business model to be "you must pay to access this content." it has been argued that this is not the best business model for a podcast, as you're either locking out your entire audience until they decide to start paying, or if you go for the "regular podcast is free but Paid Members get access to additional content" model, then you're producing content that only a fraction of your audience gets to experience. if you're doing a weekly show with an additional bonus paid weekly show, this can lead to situations where something is discussed at length on the the bonus paid show, and then referenced on the free show, leaving unpaid members in the dark as to wtf you're talking about. this is the traditional model of subscription-based content, but Podcasting 2.0 is based upon the "value-for-value" idea, where listeners are encouraged to willingly give money to support the show, possibly in exchange for a shout-out (akin to YouTube "Superchats") or something like that. the model sounds unintuitive, but it has sustained No Agenda since the late '00s, and other shows as well. another podcast I tune into every week and love does the Patreon thing. they do a free, public weekly show, and an additional bonus show only for paid Patreon subscribers. I pay them through Patreon (who takes a cut) for the privilege of accessing a link to an unlisted YouTube video each week to watch the bonus show (which they explicitly refer to as a "bonus Patreon podcast" in the show itself! why intertwine your brand with Patreon like this?!). each week the bonus show gets less than 100 views, yet the cohosts go out of their way to record an additional 30-40 minute show just for these under-100 viewers. this does not seem like a sound business strategy to me compared to value-for-value.