Related: Substack and other paid newsletters are bringing the same energy. I have just one subscription (Stratechery, which my old job paid for and which I will let lapse) but I'm gobsmacked at how many there are. Many are actually _good_ and I would like to read them, but they're not $100 / year worth of good, and yet that's like the price people default to.
I'm all for peeps getting what the market will support, and I love that random obsessive genius oddballs can now theoretically make a living by going direct to their 1000 true fans, but to me the value isn't there, and I suspect most others are in the same boat. I hate myself for saying this, but I think it's time to re-bundle.
Of the podcasts I listen to many don’t have a monetization model at all, some are ads only, and others have patreons, or their own online storefronts. Considering all the time it would take to pay them all individually, and add their feeds to my app, and this starts to sound like a major chore. Between the time, and the cost you noted, directly supporting podcasts at this time is pretty broken for anyone that listens to more than a few podcasts.
Thanks for reminding me. I planned on doing "cycles" between my favorite substackers (buy, cancel, read the backlog, switch to a new author), but i ended up with 5 concurrent subscriptions. Canceled now.
I'm all for peeps getting what the market will support, and I love that random obsessive genius oddballs can now theoretically make a living by going direct to their 1000 true fans, but to me the value isn't there, and I suspect most others are in the same boat. I hate myself for saying this, but I think it's time to re-bundle.