The Netflix of Podcasts (Will Fail)

maybe a risky video to make I don't think it's a good idea to try and make the Netflix of podcasts so I just got an article about a new company called luminary they want to be the Netflix of podcast there's also one called brew that wants to be the Netflix of podcasts obviously Spotify wouldn't mind being the Netflix of podcasts now or I think what audible though they may have let that ship sail but maybe not lots of people listen to lots of audio content I don't know how they're doing with their original stuff I don't think they're doing great with it why do I think this is a bad idea do it so what is it a bad idea like will it work or not - is it a bad idea like is it bad for the community of podcasts 3 what are these things actually gonna be if they aren't failures will they be the Netflix of podcasts or will they be something else I don't know but I have learned from watching online video some things and I would like to share a little bit of insight from that that perspective of having viewed things like this though not these things attempting to occur with things like YouTube premium and Verizon's go 90 and full screens full screen and a vessel do you remember vessel things like that because while Netflix was able to become the Netflix of TV the defecating sense Netflix became the Netflix of Netflix that's for sure no one was able to do that with user generated online video and lots of people tried and people thought that there would be a way to consolidate this kind of content put it on a paywall and make it work that way and I think that the majority of these reasons why that didn't work are applicable to podcasting let's do it so number one reason why people think there's a value proposition to these new things like brew and luminary I hope it's called luminary I'm not miss saying it is that it there's is an ad-free experience and it's not very experienced I think just for the podcasts that are either exclusive to or have a deal with those new platforms so if you sign up for eliminate their will be 40 podcasts that you will not be able to get any other way we'll talk about that a second but also that you will get AB free and I think that's the same for Brill which hasn't launched yet I don't think either of them have maybe there's a race I'm sure that the people at both of these companies are feeling a measure of urgency at the moment I don't think that this is actually a very good value proposition because one of the things that has been very clear in podcasting and one of the reasons why it is a successful business for people is that ads work and listeners don't mind them they also have that skip forward button that people push all the time I will say that I have myself have been guilty of pushing it sometimes especially when it's a service I'm already signed up for like hey I don't need a Squarespace that I have a Squarespace account already your Squarespace is currently getting my money so I don't think that there is actually that much value to an ab free experience in podcasts that might be that that calculus changes for people of different income levels of course so the more money you have and the more valuable your time is because you have a big fancy job then maybe you are more interested in having an ad-free experience and not having that time wasted but in general I'm listening to podcasts during moments when my time is being wasted already by the vagaries of life by the boring quotidian crap of commutes and mowing the lawn and shoveling the walk and doing the dishes and etc I don't care that much about my time at that moment it's not the psychological space I'm in and I we found something similar with YouTube people aren't really willing to pay $10 a month to have an ad for YouTube experience the ads aren't enough of a burden and $10 seems like a lot for something that you would already be getting for free and I think that there is a psychological difference between television which we see as something that we pay for even if there's already advertised on it television we have always understood to be something we pay for movies we have understood to be something we pay a lot for and online video which we have never considered to be something that we might pay for ever it's just like doesn't into your into your brain that this could be something that would pay for same with podcasts the psychological component of this is worth a certain amount of dollars isn't there and shifting that consumer consciousness is very hard especially once it's been established so it's harder for people who are already in the podcast listening ecosystem who already listen who are you know like who might be signing up for these platforms because their favorite creators have moved to them so that I just don't think that ad-free is a good reason to to shift like I don't think that it's gonna compel that many people to do it I could be wrong second thing is that there is a reason to watch the new thing because your favorite creator maybe it's Hannibal Buress or Trevor Noah or whoever is starting an exclusive podcast that you can only get that one way and I think this doesn't work either I think it doesn't work for two big reasons first reason maybe it does for some people for some big net I don't know I don't know you have to do you have to show me the pitch that these people are making to their audience and it has to be a pitch from Hannibal Buress it can't be a pitch from luminary because I don't care about a luminary I care about Hannibal Buress I don't actually know very much about him there are an infinite number of podcasts practically already I have not watched hundreds of episodes of 99% invisible and they are all very good and they are all completely free they're so good you can't increase the production value beyond the level of 99p I he can't do it it's already as good as it's gonna get Radiolab is already as good as it's gonna get the content is out there and they're an hour along I don't have that much time in my day to listen to that many podcasts and neither does anybody if the value is like this particular podcast I'll buy it because there's just so many other good podcasts out there and then you say but what if I am a super fan of this particular creator and I want their content that I'm willing to write along with you on this train for a second but in my experience as a creator that some people will want listen to a podcast because I created YouTube videos and they're already connected with my content and and like have an affinity for the stuff that I make I am aware that the the value in that relationship is extreme like it's a really big deal and I will not ever push something on my audience that they are not already receptive to I'll give you one go and if it seems like people are into it I'll give it again if I give one go and it doesn't look like people are into it I either have to fundamentally shift that messaging and be like okay here's actually why it's good and I did it wrong the last time I explained it poorly here's why it's good and if it's one that second time it's over like that project is over it is ended I cannot do it the the value in my relationship with my community is far greater than whatever I might get for a one time deal with a podcasting company with the Netflix of podcasts whatever it is and so I am worried about the pitch that says hey come pay some strange vc-backed company money for my content I will get something out of it maybe I won't maybe I already got the money so you're not actually helping me I think that sometimes companies can think that the value is in the content and they really believe that they can't get their minds out of this frame that the value is in the content there's like okay we'll have the content on our platform the value is in the Creator in this situation it's certainly not the case with Game of Thrones like the value isn't in George Martin the value isn't in Kit Harington I came up with one the value is in the whole production it's in that content but when it comes to podcasts especially conversational podcasts which is a lot of the podcasts that are successful the value is in the relationship between the audience and the the person who's making the content and oftentimes people will sign up to listen to a new podcast if they think they're helping you out but if you're getting an advance and you've already been helped out if if like I do a podcast with one of these companies and they're giving me 500 hours an episode or something I'm getting that money no matter what and the so the story doesn't it's not as pure it's not a simple story to say the way that we do with this we can Ryan's like hey give us five bucks and we'll give you an extra podcast that and and then we'll like use that money to to be clear because that money costs that our podcast costs nothing to make will go to our educational media company that's a story that people can understand and is this story that like is making a surprising amount of sense to people in this new world where you know contrary to the whole other like economy it's oftentimes better to ask for money than to make people pay like I think the creators are gonna have a hard time moving their audiences over to these new platforms especially if they're not audiences with a lot of disposable income and that leads me to the last thing where I think that possibly like you look at these I've only seen like this sort of upfront offerings of luminary I've seen a couple of the things that brew has brewing brew calm very good domain name that's for sure I and I like it's it's all over the place right it's comedy it's conversational it's true crime it's business it's it's trying to be everything and that's their stated goal like they want to be for podcasts what Netflix was for video but it makes me very skeptical because the people who are gonna watch conversational comedy podcast one that they have a lot of options open to them that are very funny things that are on available for free and they don't necessarily have an extra 10 bucks a month to spend that's 120 dollars a year that's stuff that you can be spending on not podcasts whereas if luminary which it has a name that makes me feel like this would be a direction they might go if you make content that's about investing it's about business if you follow the sort of like traditional subscription model and you say like you make a subscription magazine for rich people and you need a lot fewer clients a lot fewer subscribers than you do if you're making magazine for you know the average American that would make sense to me if you say this is like if the content that's actually drawing people in is content that they're getting a lot of value from because they're being introduced to people who might be their clients or their competitors or or they're you know partners customers etc or if they're learning things that it's gonna help them invest intelligently like this is why the Wall Street Journal does well right it's a it's a newspaper for rich people and so if you create if luminary becomes a podcasting service for rich people who will pay extra for quality content that will help them make good decisions and understand the world in a way that that is economically beneficial to them I could totally see that working I don't see it being broad appeal so this is a lot of details that are that are you know like sort of one at a time arguments about why I think this might not be a something that will work but I think there is also a structural fundamental thing that is the reason why sort of all of these things are things which is that there is a a different model for how this kind of content tends to get made this isn't always true but usually and this is very true in online video the thing that you're making isn't expensive to make that does not mean that it is not hard to make people gonna get those things confused till the day we all die but just cuz it's cheap to make doesn't mean it's easy to make but it is it tends to be cheap to make and that means that a lot of people are going to do it and that's gonna result in two things one some people are going to be very very good at it and they are going to rise to the top and they are not necessarily gonna be who you expect to there's gonna be a lot of stuff that is popular but not super popular you order less dependent on blockbusters and in a world that is less dependent on blockbusters you have less need for a Netflix like thing you also have less ability for a Netflix like thing to have something that everybody's gonna talk about and be like oh you're not subscribed to brew you haven't seen this new important thing that everybody's seen especially because those kinds of moments require there to be a pretty low barrier and and also a broad audience to start with so cereal for example there was a fairly broad audience because they were coming in with the support of a larger organization and then you have somebody talking about it and it's like oh I could go listen to that right now I don't need to buy a thing I don't need to pay money I don't need to like download an app like I'm already like I already have a podcasts app on my phone I'll just get it and it will come and I'll check it out that happens with HBO and Netflix because they already have the audience base getting to that audience basis very hard and obviously for Netflix was you know it started out not being about streaming at all for Amazon it started not being about content at all for HBO it started up about being a cable company in 1983 so like that that path is very unclear to me especially in a world where making the content is not expensive and also no one expects it to be expensive and so there is a little bit of a like this goes back to this sort of like the original like creator community conversation part there's a little bit of like why would I pay you for this thing that's clearly just like you having fun and not working particularly hard for an hour that's what I enjoy about it this conversational feeling of like hanging out but having a paywall makes it feel like this is now transactional and it does not make me feel that way whereas having a patreon is not that it's having a patreon makes it feel like oh if I can I can support it and I'll get an extra thing but it's not a big deal if I can't so I I think that patreon is gonna be a bigger deal for funding podcasts then and I might eat my words I I'm not saying that like I'm like I know more about this than anyone in the world listen to me but I think patreon gonna be a bigger deal for funding podcasts than subscription services will be but I also used to say that YouTube would never go HD so take it all with a grain of salt the last are we still talking about this is is that like if it did succeed would it be good for podcasting of course I do not begrudge anyone who's taking money to make a show like this right now I probably wouldn't not because I don't want their money or I think it's a bad thing but because when I make content I like it to be available for the largest audience possible and it because like usually not all the time like sometimes I could see I I can see circumstances in which my company is making content because like it needs to make money and that's life like that's okay but especially if it's gonna have my voice or face on it I'm loathe to and have said no to a number of different opportunities that would create higher production value content that would live behind paywalls and I just didn't feel like there would be a way for that stuff to reach the number of eyeballs that would make me feel good about it making content that's really good doesn't matter if nobody's gonna watch it and by putting it behind a paywall you automatically and immediately means like say that like it's not gonna get viewed by as many people this is the current state of Internet content and it is a bit of a shame and I think that advertising is not a great system though I will say that it's better in podcasts than it is in any other medium I have created on for the internet and that includes video and and the written word I guess or them two main ones it's tomorrow I didn't finish the video so I've come back with the end of the video is it a bad thing I can't believe it's been two days is it a bad thing I think that if luminary is successful it's a bad thing but I don't think it has any chance of being successful so I'm not worried about it and I think that luminary on its path to be to it going toward its dream of being the Netflix of podcasts might be a good thing it might just help some people level up their content it might help people grow their businesses I certainly wouldn't bet my business on it I hopefully nobody's gonna have all of their employees based on on so but I think if they were successful if they actually just dumped so much money into podcasts that sometime how they built a money fortress that prevent that like sucked people in and like created this new idea of what a podcast was and and brought a whole new group of people that in change consumer behavior really did it I think it'd be bad I think it would be bad for podcasts because like then you've got too much power consolidated in one place and I don't know these people I don't know if they're good people just about people but like even with my own self I would not trust me with this the beautiful thing about podcasts is that it's based on RSS dislike fairly ancient internet technology and you just like submit your RSS feed places and it shows up you control with the actual physical files which is not how YouTube works YouTube hosts the files and like it does all the stuff and so like we are beholden to this giant company who's not like that and that's the great thing about podcasts is that there is no YouTube of podcast there's no Netflix of podcast that's one of the great things about it so yes I think if luminaries succeeded it would be bad I think it has no chance of succeeding and that is what I came back to tell you of a later after I started this video all right bye

Channel: hankschannel

Views: 144,033

Rating: 4.9540405 out of 5

Keywords: podcasts, luminary, brew, netflix

Id: KTEPRCa9glY

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 07 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/thelittleking]

The observation that asking people for money rather than making them pay seems to be effective is a weird observation, but really rings true with me. I propose we change the 'gig economy' to the 'busker economy'

edit: weird observation from, like, a societal standpoint. It represents a shift.

[u/SwoleMedic1]

I think there's a larger debate to be had here which Hank doesn't touch upon but I'm sure he's had conversations about.

Podcasts=\= algorithmically based

YouTube/Netflix both want you to keep coming back as many times as possible and stay as long as they can hold your attention. If a company says they want to be the "Netflix of podcasts" what they really would like, is for you to stay there and binge podcasts for days. To create a way to have the listener returning over and over to find a "listen to this next" or "you like this so check this out"