Podcasting was a nice thing we all had, an open media way to share audio content. But we're not allowed to have nice things in 2022. "One of the recent shifts in podcasting has been the introduction of paywalls and exclusive content. It has since become a standard feature of the medium," writes John Sullivan. "As companies like Spotify, Amazon, NPR, SiriusXM and iHeartMedia aggressively monetize and market exclusive podcast content on their platforms, they've positioned themselves as the new gatekeepers." This includes things like proprietary syndication formats, ad tech, and integration into live radio and music services. But... they may have purchased all the RSS-based podcast clients, but they can't eliminate RSS and people can keep creating new clients. So real podcasting will continue. "But grassroots podcasting will find itself competing with the professionalized, platform-dominated version of the medium that's hit-driven and slickly produced, with cross-media tie-ins and big budgets." (p.s. my Ed Radio podcast has run uninterrupted since, I don't know, 2003 or so. Here's the RSS. Here's the page. Here's the archived OG Ed Radio).
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