
Joe Rogan got ripped off - armonarani
https://www.supercast.com/blog/joe-rogan-got-ripped-off
======
marcrosoft
As an avid podcast listener and casual Joe Rogan listener I can tell you that
I’m probably done listening after the transition. I’m not ever going to use
Spotify to listen to podcasts. Podcasts were, and should continue to be, a
free RSS feed which made them great. I’m not going to help destroy that great
freedom.

~~~
interestica
I don't think of Spotify as completely walled. Does the free version put ads
in the middle of a podcast or only inbetween tracks?

~~~
sigsergv
Spotify literally does not work is some countries.

------
ashtonkem
A few of the YouTubers I follow are desperately trying to move their fan base
off of YT, just to make themselves more immune to the capricious whims of YT
(one of them got banned temporarily for “impersonating” themselves). It’s kind
of fascinating seeing podcasters give up the kind of freedom that YT producers
would kill for.

~~~
RMPR
I think Peertube is the way to go, especially after this
[https://sourcehut.org/blog/2020-05-15-peertube-bootstrap-
fun...](https://sourcehut.org/blog/2020-05-15-peertube-bootstrap-fund/), if
only someone could drag content producers to choose freedom instead of walled
gardens...

~~~
ashtonkem
You make it sound like YouTubers want walled gardens, which is kind of
countermanded by the constant complaints YouTubers have about YouTube. I think
that YouTubers think they’re _stuck_ with the walled garden more than anything
else.

The problem for YouTubers is that their fans are on YouTube, and moving fans
from one platform to another is really, really hard.

I’ve also been rather negative on the viability of distributed social media
sites, because they’re really hard to explain to non-nerds. Even as someone
who understands the theory and goals, dealing with picking an instance and
navigating the differences is a hurdle I’m not really interesting in dealing
with.

------
originalvichy
Just a quick sidenote: Joe’s friends have said that people who are throwing
around numbers about how much he got from Spotify are estimating way lower
than it really is. The $100M is the most common number being thrown around.

I can’t tell how much the writer knows Joe’s content, but he would probably
have never went with a subscription model. The free access has always been one
of the #1 things he attributes to his success. I say this as a listener from
episode ~250 which is still not that long ago.

It’s clear to a long-time fan that Spotify made some assurances that their app
can be downloaded for free so all his listeners can join him.

~~~
abendy
I saw the same video [0]. It would seem unlikely that Joe wouldn't have the
proper business and legal advice to make a deal like this and not come out it
"ripped off". He's a successful stand up, been in sitcoms and general show-biz
for decades.

[0] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sq9r87jnRo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Sq9r87jnRo)

~~~
Non24Throw
Unrelated but I really struggle with this kind of double and triple negative
wording.

It WOULD seem UNLIKELY that he WOULD NOT have the proper advice to make a deal
like this AND NOT be ripped off.

“He probably has good advisors that made sure he wasn’t being ripped off.”

It honestly took me 5 minutes to figure out what you were saying. I feel like
I uniquely struggle with this, like I have some kind of undiscovered form of
dyslexia. Maybe it’s just late.

~~~
perditus
It's bad writing but I think it's unusual to have that much trouble parsing
it.

------
krustyburger
I have no idea if it’s true, but I’ve heard that a major factor was recent
pushback he was getting from YouTube with respect to contrarian coverage of
the pandemic. Apparently he wanted to have guests who would provide
alternative public health narratives and was told that this was a no-go on
YouTube. Much of his audience consumes the show as video on YouTube and
Spotify is another major brand that will offer a similar experience. He is
hoping that Spotify will give him more creative freedom and apparently was
successful in incorporating some guarantees into his new contract. I do know
that during his recent live episodes there have been opinions shared about the
quarantine and the pandemic that would have caused issues with YouTube’s
current policies regarding public health misinformation.

~~~
koiz
>Apparently he wanted to have guests who would provide alternative public
health narratives and was told that this was a no-go on YouTube.

As it should be.

>He is hoping that Spotify will give him more creative freedom

Spreading pseudoscience isn't creative, its destructive.

~~~
bmarquez
> with respect to contrarian coverage of the pandemic

How is contrarian coverage "pseudoscience"?

An example of contrarian coverage is the suicide rate rising due to the Bay
Area stay-at-home order:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269396](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23269396)

~~~
deadbunny
How is a report from medical professionals on an abc affiliate contrarian?

~~~
umanwizard
Because by far the dominant narrative among urban, educated people is that
continuing lockdowns are worth it because they prevent death from COVID-19.
Arguments that the lockdowns are doing more harm than good are (wrongly, IMHO)
associated with political conservatism, rejection of science, and so on.

Thus, evidence of the harm of lockdowns can be considered contrarian,
regardless of whether it comes from medical professionals.

~~~
rz2k
I have never been in an accident where I was helped by wearing a seatbelt, and
preparations for Y2K cost many times more than any of the harm that was caused
by Y2K bugs. Considering that I've never experienced malnutrition, I seem to
waste a lot of time money and effort on nutrition, too.

Ignoring mental health consequences of difficult times is foolish, but this
sounds much more like it was a "well, actually" sort of conversation meant to
stroke people's egos.

~~~
rthomas6
The argument isn't that that point of view is correct. The argument is that it
should be allowed to be presented.

~~~
threatofrain
The problem is that Google is exposed to political, financial, and legislative
risks from all sides -- or else Google would host all content, including
pirated movies, and they'd pass off all liability to the primary offender.

Then they'd collect advertising revenue based on all the eyeballs they can
get.

------
tc313
Erm... Joe knows what he is making without Spotify and it isn’t enough to make
the deal seem as obviously-bad as the article makes it out to be. Also, I
doubt Joe negotiated a $100 million deal without expensive legal & financial
advice. If anything, the deal’s closure is evidence that the article’s
assumptions are wrong.

~~~
MikeTheGreat
Whenever I see an article like this I always assume it ends with "...and
that's why <Joe Rogan> should have gone with me, instead. My services are very
affordable and available for purchase now!"

~~~
ac29
And this one does! It ends with an ad for their company/product, which is a
podcast monetization platform.

------
rconti
Is it still Podcasting when Spotify doesn't even have the functionality to
automatically download new episodes to your device? Wasn't this, like, the
whole point of Podcasts in the first place? Subscribe, and as long as you sync
(== plug in) your iPod before you leave the house, it'll have all of the new
podcasts you want to listen to?

I mean, yeah, I get it, phones have data plans, but still. I LOVE Spotify, I'm
a family plan subscriber, etc etc. But I'm not interested in my rates going up
to pay for access to content I don't care about and could get for free if I
did.

I tried to switch over to Spotify as a podcast app when Sonos ditched the
ability to stream from your phone (the AirPlay2 cutover), but Spotify's
podcast functionality is virtually nonexistent.

[https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Podcasts-
Automat...](https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/Podcasts-
Automatically-save-offline-new-Podcasts-and-remove/idi-p/1356299)

------
Barrin92
The general idea in the article I think is right but there's some caveats. I
don't think his audience will suffer as much as the author thinks. Joe Rogan
is pretty unique in the podcasting space, Spotify is already popular and I
think people in general tend to overestimate the degree of backlash for these
things. (the blizzard boycott comes to mind).

Also we don't really know Rogan's plans. If he plans on keeping this going for
another 10-15 years staying independent would make some sense. But if he wants
to retire after his Spotify deal runs out this may not be unreasonable.

~~~
aj-4
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I get clips through the YouTube algorithm
and if I like them, watch the whole podcast.

point being, I think the YouTube platform has played quite a large role where
users don't have to "seek out" new episodes and I don't think that can be
understated.

ultimately, only the numbers will tell.

~~~
cableshaft
Supposedly they're still able to put clips on YouTube, you just have to go to
Spotify to hear the rest of the podcast.

It definitely adds a layer of friction, though. Instead of just clicking and
immediately watching the full video on YouTube, you have to shift apps, to
something you might not be signed up for or want to pay for (I'm one of the
latter, I used to pay for Spotify years ago but stopped and I don't want to go
back to it).

------
Traster
I think that one thing this analysis is missing is why F1 drivers go to
Ferrari. F1 drivers don't drive for Ferrari because they pay the best. They
drive for Ferrari because of the dream. On Youtube Joe Rogan is just some guy.
Spotify is offering Joe Rogan more than that.

Personally, I think the real point in this analysis is that 90% of people just
aren't going to sollow him to spotify. Which is fine for spotify, they're
buying users, but for Joe Rogan it'll be the end of his place in popular
culture.

~~~
ardit33
My guess Howard Stern is a good example from last decade. He is still around,
but mostly irrelevant.

~~~
njudah
Still has a massive audience, recently had a best selling booking, and
generates headlines -- but I guess you have a unique definition of relevance.
I'd encourage you to listen to his guest interviews -- they are amazing.

~~~
Consultant32452
I was previously a Stern fan and I distinctly recall listening to him on my
way to school on 9/11 as he was covering the planes hitting the twin towers. I
haven't heard or seen a single thing from Stern since he switched to
satellite. I have no idea how to even listen to his guest interviews if I
wanted. I could search for it, but that's kind of the point, I would have to
search. It's never popped up in my YT/Twitter/FB feed. Friction is powerful,
especially at scale.

------
goatherders
The math is certainly interesting. But it ignores the fact that not everyone
is looking to maximize every revenue dollar. Joe Rogan has made an
EXTRAORDINARY amount of money. From the outside looking in it seems silly to
poo-poo a guy that's made 10s of millions because maybe he could have made
100's of millions.

~~~
glass_of_water
They didn't ignore that fact, they explicitly mentioned it in the article.

> Stern and Rogan are already super rich. The difference between $50mm/year of
> profit and $100mm means zero to their day-to-day lifestyle. What I imagine
> does matter to them is the size of their audience and their impact, and both
> made choices that will limit that forever.

~~~
goatherders
Ok thanks. Point stands.

------
Ididntdothis
If anybody lives their life exactly the way they want to live, then it's
Rogan. His goals may be different from the writer's goals but I am 100% sure
he got exactly what he wanted.

------
lowdose
Anybody an idea what sidekick Jamie's cut is from this enterprise?

Can't imagine Jamie doesn't have equity in the show and remained just a
employee. On this kind of level of earnings, an important part is choosing who
you share with.

Cheap debt influences the cashflow multiplier in a great way when doing a
discounted cash flow analysis. The estimated financial gains are off by at
least a factor 2 or 3. It doesn't make sense to make a deal of 100 million
when you received 30 million last year.

> Joe Rogan's podcast 'The Joe Rogan Experience' earned a staggering $30
> million in revenue across 190 million downloads per month in 2019.

------
itsoktocry
> _In my last post I estimated Rogan was making around $64MM /year._

Colour me skeptical.

I have a hard time believing that Joe (who has been in show business a long
time), or the business people he surrounds himself with as advisors, would
sign a ~$100MM exclusive contact when they're printing $50MM+ a year. That
doesn't make sense, does it?

~~~
valuearb
It makes sense if he’s not maximizing ad revenues, such as wasting precious ad
time on free ads for Onnit.

------
remir
_In September, I wrote a post about how Howard Stern is getting ripped off by
Sirius. I made the case that Howard Stern is making $90 million a year when he
could be making 2-3x by cutting out the middle-man and doing a subscription
podcast._

Sure, until subscription fatigue kicks in. People pay for Spotify or SiriousXM
because of the overall value. I doubt many people would be interested in
paying just for Stern or Rogan's podcast. That is in addition to all the other
services they're already paying for, such as Netflix, Prime, HBO, etc...

~~~
mulmen
This is where cable companies really screwed up.

They could have offered consumers a choice of channels instead of packages. It
would have required changing their business model but most cable companies are
local monopolies so they should be able to declare new economics.

With their position as ISPs for many they were well positioned to offer
streaming services first. These could have subscriptions by show instead of
network. I would happily pay for the handful of shows I actually watch rather
than the pantheon of streaming services we have now.

~~~
aksss
LTT did an episode about the pantheon of streaming services causing a
resurgence in piracy. It is getting ridiculous. Everyone wants their $8-16/mo.

------
hogFeast
Yep, this is very questionable (although is kind of typical of the 21st
century business "knawledge").

First, if Rogan is doing this deal then he values himself at less than
whatever they paid. I am assuming he has a fairly good understanding of that
worth is (the guy has worked in media for a very long time) given that he
knows what he earns, and the author doesn't/

Second, the value of these kind of audiences is pretty much always over-
estimated. Spotify is way overvaluing Rogan's worth, and the author is way
overvaluing Rogan's worth too. No, there isn't a huge subscription business
here (Stern doesn't have one, people buy Sirius subs). Can you make money from
podcast subscriptions? Yes. Should you? No.

Third, most of these media-ish companies don't think about this in a very
sophisticated way (as Rogan's quote at the end demonstrates). They are
desperate to create growth at any cost, they seldom focus on product or think
about customer/supplier value, and usually have execs with bureaucratic/big
media ways of thinking (which is useless for growth). I suspect this will be
more Ninja and Mixer than Stern/Sirius...they have bought some listeners
great...but unless they buy literally every podcast, their platform isn't
growing (it is actually very like Twitch, what incentive does any podcaster
have to move onto Spotify and make them rich...it is a ludicrous insight into
the level of thought that goes into these huge, expensive deals...now Ninja is
streaming to a few thousand rather than 30k...genius play Microsoft).

Fourth, the stuff about Spotify not having editorial control is not true. I
don't know who is fooling who here but this is like Facebook acquiring
WhatsApp and saying they are going to show ads...LOOOOOL. Spotify is a content
company, if Facebook gets blamed for what other people right on their platform
then Spotify is going to get hammered when Rogan (inevitably) does something
unwise.

------
aj-4
yea.. same thing that's happening in the live stream world with Ninja leaving
Twitch and etc.

Ultimately seems to be a lose-lose-lose for the platform (where they don't
pull 1/4 of their prior numbers), fans (who generally just stop caring), and
creator (who makes money short term but loses major brand equity, relevance,
growth)

Rogan didn't know how high he could've taken it. Now he does. Maybe he was
ready to retire anyway?

~~~
bmarquez
> Maybe he was ready to retire anyway?

The article's revenue estimates are based on Rogan doing more work...setting
up subscription programs, keeping up with YouTube's content policies to avoid
getting kicked off the platform, and continuing to find podcast guests and
creative material.

Perhaps he wants to kick back, not work so hard (depending on the contract he
actually signed), and collect a steady paycheck? The author likens Rogan's
podcast to sitting on an oilfield (where the value of oil can be easily
evaluated), but creative endeavors are hardly so cut and dried.

~~~
aj-4
those things you listed as "work" all still apply though, except now there's a
contractual obligation

if his desire was to kick back it seems like the move would be to just relax
his release schedule

wanting something steady in the chaos of creative work though, I can
completely understand

------
s1artibartfast
The criticism in the article is based on comparing Joe Rogan's' podcast to a
SaaS business and is fundamentally flawed.

>And make no mistake: Joe Rogan is a business...I think he is capable of, his
corporation would easily be valued at over $1,000,000,000...

>As I pointed out in my last post, if Rogan had added subscription, he would
have owned a company that looked like the world’s best SaaS business.

The problem is that there is no exit for this business. Nobody is going to pay
20x past earnings for JRE without Joe. This is the difference between being a
performer (literally a gig worker), and a business owner.

------
treebornfrog
I don't think he got ripped off, I for one, prefer that some audience is taken
away from YouTube.

Also would like to see alternative opinions that contrast the consensus /
mainstream narrative.

Also hope the video is still about on Spotify.

------
raydev
Sure, Rogan gave up _hypothetical_ 10s of millions for this. But those
millions required work and marketing and sponsor management, and those 10s of
millions weren't guaranteed.

With Spotify he just secured a guaranteed paycheck and a guarantee that he
(and his team) don't need to work nearly as hard.

And what audience does he _really_ lose? Non-paying customers via YouTube and
podcast apps can be non-paying customers on Spotify and it makes no difference
to him.

~~~
poxrud
Hundreds of millions or billions, not 10s of millions.

------
yalogin
May be I am dense but how is a podcast generating a recurring revenue? IMO the
podcast is heavily tied to the main guy. In this case it’s only worth that
much because Joe Rogan is there. If he gets hit by a bus or decides to just
leave, Spotify is fucked. To me that is what this makes the whole deal risky.
With that kind of risk, I don’t expect Spotify to pay up that much.

------
zepto
He got ripped off and so did the rest of us.

This whole ‘privatization of podcasting’ process is nothing but harmful to
culture.

Spotify is a pure predator.

~~~
dredmorbius
[https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/on-the-spotify-joe-
rogan-...](https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/on-the-spotify-joe-rogan-deal-
and)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261495](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23261495)

~~~
zepto
Yup - seems like these support the assertions.

------
ccmcarey
> As I said in my last post, were he to build the level of advertising and
> subscription revenue I think he is capable of, his corporation would easily
> be valued at over $1,000,000,000...

That's a big _if_, and so far as I can see, there's not much in the way of
justification for that in the article.

~~~
dkn775
Not to mention if the podcast got so full of advertisements and money grabs
like that many people, including me, would stop listening. I’ve seen so many
podcasts start out good then get more and more into advertising obligations,
which often comes with things such as increasing the volume/interruption
characteristics of said ads.

------
thro1
I'm lost at the units. Could someone tell me how much is $100-$200mm ?
(dollaromillimeters?)

Edit: Found on Quora what MM means:

>Lowercase "mm" does mean millimeters, but uppercase "MM" is used for
millions. "Mille" is Latin for "thousand". MM is Mille Mille.

------
15charlimitdumb
```We will still have clips up on YouTube but full versions of the show will
only be on Spotify after the end of the year.```

Seems like Rogan is going to retain upload rights to other platforms, negating
nearly all the articles assertions.

------
jamisteven
Whoever wrote this doesnt have a clue as to the inner-workings of this deal.

~~~
symmitchry
They certainly aren't given Joe Rogan very much credit, that's for sure.

------
seesawtron
I don't really care if this move is economically less profitable to Joe Rogan
and don't understand why this author does either. Anyways, I have been a long
term fan of JRE. In the inital phase of lockdown, Joe was pro-lockdown but in
the past weeks (shrugging and not commenting at the mention of Elon Musk's
tweets in Tim Poole's episode), he's switched to anti-lockdown which started
around the Elon Musk episode. The episodes after that have received a lot of
criticisim as well.

Now I force myself to see all his episodes with utmost skepticism and doing
that I can neither enjoy nor tolerate them anymore. And now with this move to
Spotify, I will finally have a reason to quit, sadly. It was great while it
lasted though.

~~~
generalpass
What are your issues with how Rogan justifies his position of being anti-
lockdown?

~~~
seesawtron
It's the transition that seems strange to me. They have been ripping on
politicians all this time, those who were anti-lockdown in the beginning of
the crisis.

Its not just the anti-lockdown comments that turned me off. I can agree to
some degree with that. There's more like in the episodes that followed
afterwards with Brendan Schaub or fight companion where they are just spouting
stupid shit. But I guess you can't always invite the best guests.

------
ponker
I don’t think this means anyone was “ripped off.” If someone offered me
$100m/yr hassle free vs needing to run an entire company and making a billion
I’d take the $100m every time.

------
sub7
lol this article casually talks about how he'd have to run the business
himself "(not hard though)"

I don't think you realize that when you get to extreme wealth, your time is
the most precious thing you have. Having a month more of free time every year
is really priceless.

He made a good deal.

------
coding123
Didn't we all (well, most of us) get ripped off by becoming employees? Where
do you draw the line?

------
onetimemanytime
blah blah blah...at 52 he has FU money even for his children. Once this
contract is over he can try a new model, with plenty of runaway.

~~~
threatofrain
Colbert is bigger than Rogan, has way more money and negotiating leverage, has
experience running his own ship, but still had to tone down his humor to
grandpa levels of stale. Ba dump tss, play him off Johnny, kind of stuff.
Colbert could also say "fuck you" to the world, but he would also be saying
"fuck you" to himself.

------
throwaway_USD
Gee...if only he had a middleman like you to save him all that money for a %,
then he could cut out all those middlemen taking a % you are complaining
about.

------
friendlybus
Rogan has also said he doesnt like paywalls because your growth figures drop
substantially. We have no idea about his churn figures, being free might be a
requirement or a long term growth play.

------
afrcnc
Taking into account that all Rogan does these days is defend Trump, I could
care less. Let his podcast shrivel away hidden behind a Spotify paywall.

~~~
me_me_me
haha, he is a democrat and had ton of dem candidates on his show. Just because
he thinks biden is an awful candidate doesn't make him trump fan.

Not every decision trump or his administration does is bad. That's a fact. Is
he a manchild only interested in himself? Absolutely but,

If trump says 2+2=4 are you going to argue with that? Does agreeing that 2+2=4
makes you trump supporter?

~~~
afrcnc
Than why are almost all his recent shows about how Trump is right, or how the
media is attacking Trump. The media has a "right" to attack Trump for
blatantly lying. Do you even listen to his shows?

~~~
me_me_me
He is giving trump dues when they are due.

I have seen some of those questions trying to get tramp to fail for some quick
news.

Those attempts are as childish as trump is. And it doesnt belong to
journalism.

Uhhm... he also said trump was right to close the border with china and eu at
the start of pandemic and that he was called rasist for it. He was right
though, that was the right move. Whatever the motivation, restricting
frivolous travel is a way to go to fight pandemics.

He laughed at some joke tweets.

I cant recall anything else apart from that.

Look he is a democrat by believes, he wants tulsi gabbard to be the president.

> Do you even listen to his shows?

this is not reddit, cut this out or get out.

------
seppin
Maybe Joe doesn't want to work 16 hour days to become a billionaire, maybe he
wants a giant check and to keep living a life he's enjoying.

This tunnel vision of this place is incredible. Not everyone wants to be Elon
Musk. Some people are happy where they are.

