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You are not representative. The vast majority of podcast listeners subscribe a channel on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. The vast majority of podcasts are served

You are not representative. The vast majority of podcast listeners subscribe a channel on YouTube, Spotify or Apple. The vast majority of podcasts are served from similar centralized media companies. Which is why "JRE is moving from YouTube to Spotify for $200 mil" is a thing. If podcasts were decentralized you wouldn't "move" from one content company to another.

madeofpalk 3y ago
Which is why "Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  99% of people read that as "Whichever you prefer from Spotify/YouTube/Apple"
skywhopper 3y ago
But you can get 99% of the same podcasts via Apple as you can via Spotify or many other podcasting apps. Just like you can visit websites on almost any web browser. This used to be how everything was expected to work online, but that has changed dramatically, and for the worse. (Spotify is trying to break the openness of podcasting but they mostly haven’t managed to do so, yet.)
jdauriemma 3y ago
Could you elaborate a bit further? I don’t see why this is necessarily true.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  Someone is hosting the sound file that’s ultimately played when the podcast is listened to. A sibling comment to yours is saying that JRE is newly to be hosted with multiple hosts, which is the only real step away from centralization. RSS is just providing the means for an up-to-date URL for the podcast episodes. At the end of the day, the podcast is served by one of these hosts, regardless of how it was discovered. It can be observed that they’re centralized when media companies make exclusive deals as Spotify attempted with JRE.
  - jdauriemma 3y ago
    Apologies, I’m probably missing some nuance but I don’t see anything in your reply that is meaningfully different from the comment above. The existence of major platforms does not necessarily challenge the notion that podcasting is open by design. The advent of exclusivity deals seems to confirm the standing assumption that podcasters are in control of distribution.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
      Ah yeah, I didn’t explain the point well. I wouldn’t disagree that podcasters are in control of distribution; that’s not actually exclusive with the distribution being centralized. The point I was making about the exclusivity deals is just that these platforms have started to try -- and likely will continue to try -- to entice some of the more popular productions into such deals, which would necessarily increase centralization if they go through. It’s a cynical perspective so maybe best kept to myself but I see all the right pieces for a UX bait-and-switch. I suspect the parent commenter (to whom you asked the initial question) sees the same thing. I think it’s seemingly intentionally misleading to call this decentralized; like “that’s what they want you to think” as a paranoid way of putting it. Regardless of any motives, it seems to serve certain interests that this is seen as decentralized, and I don’t think they’re the interests of podcast fans. Food for thought, I guess.
      - jdauriemma 3y ago
        Yeah that’s a fair point. The protocol may be open but much of the discovery/hosting is siloed in maybe 2-3 services. It doesn’t take much imagination to see where that could lead.
sva_ 3y ago
JRE used to be distributed on his personal website before Spotify. And it seems like they're now going back to hosting it on several platforms.
- bemusedthrow75 3y ago
  Because the deal will end (at the end of this year) and presumably they correctly sense it won't be renewed.
  - sva_ 3y ago
    Are you sure about that? Spotify signs new deal with Joe Rogan reportedly worth up to $250m https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/02/spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-contract-details https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/02/spotify-j... Sounds like they got a deal.
    - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
      Oh, last week. I missed that. Idiotic if you ask me. He’s just like any dimwitted everyman: every single pub in the UK has at least two Joe Rogans. I was sat with my back to one in a coffee shop the other day.
pessimizer 3y ago
That's just a power rule, not an insight. The idea that you can choose between YouTube, Spotify, or Apple for the same product is good. The fact that you can still choose from a long tail of RSS providers for most shows is even better.
- Kye 3y ago
  The long tail is really the important thing. Most things over the last 10 years ended up binary: either almost no one used it, or everyone used one thing. All efforts by centralized services to take it over have failed. And most of those efforts were only viable in the now fading overheated market driven by free money.
The_Colonel 3y ago
If you make such statement you need to provide some numbers to back it up. I mean, Android is still the largest platform in terms of users and it doesn't have a dominant podcast app. Spotify for a long time didn't offer podcasts and it still offers only very poor experience for podcasts.
bemusedthrow75 3y ago
> Which is why "JRE is moving from YouTube to Spotify for $200 mil" is a thing. It's really not. They bought his regular anti-intellectual dribble not because podcasts aren't decentralised, but the opposite: because the inexplicable draw of his particular brand of common-sense-insulting prole-feed might convince people that podcasts are something only big services can do, and to compete with other big services trying to do the same things. They want to give the impression that big content is "locked up" by services, when it's not. In my estimation it hasn't really succeeded (in his asinine, consistency-free, bloviating world or anywhere else). All they really did is associated their brand with his twaddle.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

madeofpalk 3y ago

Which is why "Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement.

dist-epoch 3y ago
99% of people read that as "Whichever you prefer from Spotify/YouTube/Apple"

skywhopper 3y ago

But you can get 99% of the same podcasts via Apple as you can via Spotify or many other podcasting apps. Just like you can visit websites on almost any web browser. This used to be how everything was expected to work online, but that has changed dramatically, and for the worse. (Spotify is trying to break the openness of podcasting but they mostly haven’t managed to do so, yet.)

jdauriemma 3y ago

Could you elaborate a bit further? I don’t see why this is necessarily true.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
Someone is hosting the sound file that’s ultimately played when the podcast is listened to. A sibling comment to yours is saying that JRE is newly to be hosted with multiple hosts, which is the only real step away from centralization. RSS is just providing the means for an up-to-date URL for the podcast episodes. At the end of the day, the podcast is served by one of these hosts, regardless of how it was discovered. It can be observed that they’re centralized when media companies make exclusive deals as Spotify attempted with JRE.
- jdauriemma 3y ago
  Apologies, I’m probably missing some nuance but I don’t see anything in your reply that is meaningfully different from the comment above. The existence of major platforms does not necessarily challenge the notion that podcasting is open by design. The advent of exclusivity deals seems to confirm the standing assumption that podcasters are in control of distribution.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    Ah yeah, I didn’t explain the point well. I wouldn’t disagree that podcasters are in control of distribution; that’s not actually exclusive with the distribution being centralized. The point I was making about the exclusivity deals is just that these platforms have started to try -- and likely will continue to try -- to entice some of the more popular productions into such deals, which would necessarily increase centralization if they go through. It’s a cynical perspective so maybe best kept to myself but I see all the right pieces for a UX bait-and-switch. I suspect the parent commenter (to whom you asked the initial question) sees the same thing. I think it’s seemingly intentionally misleading to call this decentralized; like “that’s what they want you to think” as a paranoid way of putting it. Regardless of any motives, it seems to serve certain interests that this is seen as decentralized, and I don’t think they’re the interests of podcast fans. Food for thought, I guess.
    - jdauriemma 3y ago
      Yeah that’s a fair point. The protocol may be open but much of the discovery/hosting is siloed in maybe 2-3 services. It doesn’t take much imagination to see where that could lead.

sva_ 3y ago

JRE used to be distributed on his personal website before Spotify. And it seems like they're now going back to hosting it on several platforms.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago
Because the deal will end (at the end of this year) and presumably they correctly sense it won't be renewed.
- sva_ 3y ago
  Are you sure about that? Spotify signs new deal with Joe Rogan reportedly worth up to $250m https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/02/spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-contract-details https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/02/spotify-j... Sounds like they got a deal.
  - bemusedthrow75 3y ago
    Oh, last week. I missed that. Idiotic if you ask me. He’s just like any dimwitted everyman: every single pub in the UK has at least two Joe Rogans. I was sat with my back to one in a coffee shop the other day.

pessimizer 3y ago

That's just a power rule, not an insight. The idea that you can choose between YouTube, Spotify, or Apple for the same product is good. The fact that you can still choose from a long tail of RSS providers for most shows is even better.

Kye 3y ago
The long tail is really the important thing. Most things over the last 10 years ended up binary: either almost no one used it, or everyone used one thing. All efforts by centralized services to take it over have failed. And most of those efforts were only viable in the now fading overheated market driven by free money.

The_Colonel 3y ago

If you make such statement you need to provide some numbers to back it up. I mean, Android is still the largest platform in terms of users and it doesn't have a dominant podcast app. Spotify for a long time didn't offer podcasts and it still offers only very poor experience for podcasts.

bemusedthrow75 3y ago

> Which is why "JRE is moving from YouTube to Spotify for $200 mil" is a thing. It's really not. They bought his regular anti-intellectual dribble not because podcasts aren't decentralised, but the opposite: because the inexplicable draw of his particular brand of common-sense-insulting prole-feed might convince people that podcasts are something only big services can do, and to compete with other big services trying to do the same things. They want to give the impression that big content is "locked up" by services, when it's not. In my estimation it hasn't really succeeded (in his asinine, consistency-free, bloviating world or anywhere else). All they really did is associated their brand with his twaddle.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]