Have We Hit Peak Podcast? by Jennifer Miller, NY Times
An interesting piece from the NY Times about the podcast “industry” right now and how many are thinking the “good times are coming to an end” (so to speak). Here is an interesting and salient quote to me:
Call him cynical, but Jordan Harbinger, host of “The Jordan Harbinger Show” podcast, thinks there is a “podcast industrial complex.” Hosts aren’t starting shows “because it’s a fun, niche hobby,” he said. “They do it to make money or because it will make them an influencer.”
When the point is to make money instead of having something interesting to share, or just wanting to have fun doing it, then you are going to burn out or even edit yourself to try and meet some sort of metric, or reach some specific audience because they are going to make you some money.
This is part of the issue with news today, right? It is searching out dollars first and informing the public second. The incentives are messed up and wrong and the interesting writing I remember reading years ago tends to be drowned out by people yelling at each other.
Maybe the end of the “podcast industry” isn’t a bad thing, overall, for the culture.