
I’m Stopping the Fan-Supported Podcast Experiment - laurex
https://tim.blog/2019/07/11/why-im-stopping-the-fan-supported-podcast-experiment/
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ar0
Of course, podcast ads are also the opposite of almost all the other ads on
the Internet: They don't send your personal data and web browsing history to
hundreds of shady companies, they don't slow down your webbrowsing, they
aren't a vector to install malware on your system.

Thus, I have absolutely no problem with podcast ads, and if they allow a great
podcast I like to be produced sustainably, that's awesome! The same way I also
don't have a problem with ads in printed magazines or on billboards (yet; some
of them already do track you, of course).

~~~
shalmanese
I find podcast ads to be far worse than every other type of ad because it's
the only one that forces you to engage in the ad at 1:1 speed. My podcast app
allows me to skip forward 15s but that requires interaction and I'm often in a
situation where my hands are not free enough to skip through ads.

I pay for ad free versions of every podcast I listen to that offers it. If you
calculate the amount of time you spend listening to the ad, multiplied by a
reasonable hourly rate, then paying to make the ad go away generally makes
sense. Podcasts that don't offer an ad free version, I'm much more likely to
leave it lowest on my priority queue of podcasts to listen to.

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pbhjpbhj
A few tidbits:

18k respondents to his survey offered up $30k per month in donations .. but
ads are better .. for a podcast.

He has 400M downloads from ~300 episodes.

One subscriber paid $1k per month.

Despite respondents to the survey saying they'd pay $5 or $10 he tested $9.95
and $19.95 payment levels as the minimum and 83% paid whatever the lowest was.
So, prior to the subscription 24% said they'd pay $5, and only 4% that they'd
pay $10 but he still managed to only lose 17% (off the subscription page) when
the minimum was $19.95 .. that's kinda crazy.

#iveneverheardofhim #isheahypnotist

Edit: People listen, then go away and hunt down the products, enough that
companies will pay him more than [ 30k/(1M/5) ] ~$6 per subscriber per month??

~~~
elp
I'd never heard of him before today either.

He wrote a book called the 4 hour work week that claims he makes 40k/month by
only working 4 hours a week. The amazon reviews are a mix of creepy 5 star
reviews by pod people and 20% 1 & 2 star reviews mocking it. The comments on
his podcast (on castbox 200k subscribers) are similar with lots of whining
about the length of the adverts and how boring the show is.

After a bit more looking... absolutely fascinating. Obviously he's a complete
con-artist and he works like a dog but his marketing ability is psychopathic
genius.

~~~
reagle
He began his career by pushing a supplement (first for the brain, then pivoted
it to performance)
[https://hackinglife.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/razodglh#supplement...](https://hackinglife.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/razodglh#supplements-
and-self-help)

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kennywinker
Not sure how well it’s working for them, but for 3+ years i’ve been subscribed
to a podcast that has two feeds, one for shorter abridged episodes with ads,
and one for longer ad-free episodes for paid subscribers.

Clearly most people don’t want to pay, but if your content lends itself to
this kind of basic/premium situation, I think it makes a lot of sense.

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js2
> That’s why I have a closet full of Mizzen & Main shirts and drink Four
> Sigmatic. Not sure I would have known about those without you.

Four Sigmatic?

> Four Sigmatic is a US company specialized in superfoods, functional
> mushrooms and adaptogenic herbs.

Ok. To each their own, I guess.

------
erikbe
Subscription-based media (almost) only works for niche publications. NYT is an
exception but it's only partially funded through subscriptions. The New Yorker
took decades to turn a profit, and has ads as well.

Based on the fact that his user base is so large, it makes sense that
advertising works best. Especially considering how many listeners he would
lose if he only released it to subscribers. The user base may be more valuable
to advertisers, than the podcast is to subscribers.

------
NetOpWibby
A la carte is annoying when everyone starts doing it. Subscription fatigue is
already setting in for music and video streaming services. No reason the
podcast space would be different.

Still, kudos to Tim for trying.

~~~
falcolas
A la carte works remarkably well with Patreon. Personally I support 11
different video, podcast, and writers.

Perhaps that’s the real takeaway: make it easy to do a la carte, and people
will.

~~~
mcbits
It works well _for_ Patreon, but Patreon content creator earnings seem to
follow the same power law that afflicts much of the economy. Almost nobody
makes more than a couple bucks until they have network effects strong enough
to fuel orders of magnitude higher earnings outside of Patreon with
traditional (annoying) merch/advertising.

That's not to shit on Patreon. I think it's the right idea but still far from
effective enough to consider creative funding a "solved problem" yet.

~~~
em-bee
actually it doesn't work as well for patreon as they'd like because these
small transactions still cost to much. banks charge you through the nose for
them, so they take a share of the profit here.

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mgalgs
I'd hesitate to generalize this across the podcasting space. Tim's podcast is
pretty unique in this regard. He _really_ does have unique and interesting
advertisers, probably because his scale means he can pick basically whoever he
wants.

Sam Harris did this same experiment recently and has stuck with the ad-free
model. I listen to both podcasts with roughly equal frequency and interest and
I immediately subscribed to Sam but not to Tim.

Not sure what the mechanics are going on here but bottom line is that both
models seem to work well in different contexts.

