So... This is a conversation that needs to be had. Or rather, it's a conversation that should have been had before YouTube/FB/etc. gained control over the worl

So... This is a conversation that needs to be had. Or rather, it's a conversation that should have been had before YouTube/FB/etc. gained control over the world wide web. Podcasts are, and have long been the freeiest medium. The protocol itself worked well. Hosting was cheap & simple enough (compared to video) that "free hosting" didn't give the likes of Google an angle to centralise it under their control. It was also marginal and unprofitable enough that they didn't try hard. That said, podcast discovery always sucked. It still sucks. Blogrolls, BITD, worked well for me. Recommendation engines better or worse, are at least something. Monopoly's understand instinctively that recommendation/discovuery is the key to the kingdom. Open systems tend to see the pursuit as dirty. In any case, discovery is like hosting. It's a ford. Control it and you control the stream. Neglect it, and be defeated. The puritanical rejection of tracking, profiling, recommendation & discovery has and is placing a low ceiling on open media initiatives. It's ceding ground to monopolies. We need open, consensual ways of having profiling... advertising even, perhaps.