sari

More advertisers and better ad delivery: Most of the major tech platforms aren’t satisfied with just capturing podcast market share. They’ve also invested heavily in podcast hosting and ad tech, acquiring companies like Anchor, Megaphone, SimpleCast, and AdsWizz.

But sometimes the mystery escapes even practitioners: many of the selfless contributors Eghbal quotes have trouble making ends meet, and either do freelance consulting on the very code they created, set up Patreons like other struggling artists, or hold down day jobs often not even related to their projects.

Social capital, on the other hand, is harder to define and relies on the creation of a “successful status game.”

Kelly’s vision depends on an evolution of the Internet in which the vast tangle of possible one-on-one connections partition into countless small cliques—each one a fandom or a mini community revelling in the discovery of others who share their quirks. Instead, the social-media giants effectively rerouted these connections through a small number of... See more

With the advent of blogs, social media, YouTube channels, and other distribution platforms, you no longer had to rely on gatekeepers to attract people to your curiosities. Your uniqueness became an asset, not a liability. And as more creator-friendly tools were introduced into the landscape, it expanded your ability to make money doing something... See more

Phrased differently: how can I chat with 5 other people obsessed with the same thing as I am this week? Be it a concept, company, question, or idea?

If Second Life was 20 years ago, what’s happening today? Over the last year I’ve started paying more indie creators directly for their work — heavily biased towards podcasts and newsletters/blogs. The other night I was wondering which ones I’d likely still be subscribing to a year or two from now. The “absolutely yes” category was dominated by... See more