Thread by @mijustin

Tired of these tired takes that say “inevitably, open standards like podcasting must one day be consolidated into a single platform controlled by a megacorp.”

Fuck that!

Millions of people read sites based on RSS every day. No one controls the CMS, monetization, or client.

In a closed ecosystem, the spoils almost always go to the reigning platform owner.

In an open ecosystem, the benefits are more evenly distributed.

Don’t think creators haven’t learned lessons from the record industry giving control to iTunes, or newspapers giving control to FB.

Initially, a closed-platform will entice creators with the promise of more exposure, more money, more targeting, more analytics.

But invariably, as soon as they have sufficient leverage, they’ll apply downward pressure on creators. They’ll squeeze the ecosystem for every drop.

We’ve seen this every time one platform gains dominance.

Amazon, Facebook, Medium.

That’s the *play*. Destroy the open ecosystem and control all the economics.

Shareholders like monopolies.

For these platforms, content is a commodity.

When they can pay artists less for music, they will.
When they can pay vloggers pennies, they will.
When they can pay podcasters less, they will.
When they can pay writers nothing, they will.

It's no wonder so many creators are going *back* to paid newsletters and selling direct to customers.

Email is the last bastion of the free and open web.

(Guaranteed if any company could have locked it down and controlled the ecosystem completely, they would have).

Folks keep assuming that content creators want their work to be supported by dynamically inserted ads on a central platform.

Look at what YouTubers have to put up with. Lower and lower ad rates.

Increasingly, creators are looking for more sustainable ways to make a living.

Comedians used to rely on HBO and Netflix; now they can start an email newsletter and sell their special directly to fans.

Thinkers like Sam Harris used to rely on publishers; now he can start a free podcast and upsell fans to his private podcast.

Open and independent is 👍.

Fuck I'm mad.

Thank god AOL wasn’t able to “lock down” the web, back when they controlled the primary portal.

I’m sure they (and their shareholders) would have moved it though!

Some things shouldn’t be owned or controlled by a single party.

The web was the first time in history where individual creators got some leverage.

It gave us the power to distribute our work, without gatekeepers.

When a single company controls distribution, we lose that leverage.

Thank god Hotmail wasn’t able to “lock down” email and force everyone to send and receive msgs through their platform.

But, I’m sure MSFT would have loved it!

(Can you imagine how profitable you’d be if you could control all electronic messaging?)

Some things shouldn’t owned.

It's not surprising that many of the most successful bootstrapped businesses were built on top of email (MailChimp, ConvertKit, Campaign Monitor, Postmark, Litmus).

Open platforms create opportunities for small businesses.

It's ironic that analysts are assuming Spotify's vertical integration will somehow be the death knell for Apple Podcasts and RSS when Joe Rogan built his empire purely on those platforms (and 0% on Spotify).

190 million downloads/month. Hosted on Libysn. Distributed on iTunes.

Somehow, ~10.5 million people were able to find Joe's show every week, using the open standard + iTunes.

That's doesn't mean RSS (or Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast) can't be improved; but it's incredible how well it's working already.