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I still cannot believe how much high-quality content I can get for free. Some of it has ads; some has a tip jar; some makes extra content behind a paywall. I donate to many of them, even though I rarely actually listen to the extra content. There are just too many things that interest me to spend even more time on the same things.

I keep expecting that to dry up. Thus far none of the shows I listen to has moved entirely behind a paywall. It's bound to happen one of these days. But I'm genuinely unsure if most of them will do better behind a paywall than just asking for donations or hustling for ads. It feels as if a paywall will increase the average income per listener by 10x, while cutting the audience by 90%.

Those numbers have huge error bars, but apparently all of the hosts I listen to have concluded that they'd rather have larger audiences. At least for my interests, the podcasters all seem to genuinely want to connect audiences with their subject, and want enough money to live on, not get rich.