“heh guess people just don’t like paying for things”

Dammit, no. That’s not the problem.

More news of Luminary, Spotify, The BBC, etc doing their exclusive lockdown of the podcast ecosystem popping up as Luminary readies to go live.

The problem these companies don’t seem to grasp, and indeed the tech blogs that report on them, is the problem with them is not that they’re paid content. It’s that they’re not podcasts.

Podcasts have RSS feeds. Podcasts can be played in any podcast client. Podcasts can be played on iPods, dammit. There needs to be a way to download the episodes and play them on any device.

Patreon for example gets this. You can set up an exclusive-to-patrons podcast feed on their system and Patreon will give your patrons a unique link that they can use to access the content. This is all it needs.

If Luminary, Spotify, The BBC, whoever else, were to provide users with a unique RSS URL they can subscribe to in their client of choice we’re all on the same page.

It is not an issue with paying for podcasts. It’s an issue with their podcasts not being podcasts. Open up your doors, podcasting is inclusive - not exclusive.

Let the market decide if your podcasts are worth paying for, don’t try to lock down the ecosystem that’s been around since before you were a startup sparkle in some nerd’s eye. Quit trying to wall everything off. Ya dinguses.