In 2004 Adam Curry and Dave Winer were credited with creating the first podcast. Fast forward to today and Adam Curry is still pushing the envelope. Adam created Podcast Index, and Podcaster Wallet which allows users to stream sats as they listen to their favorite podcasts. This innovation is incredible for content creators. No longer do podcasters have to stay reliant on advertisers and centralized podcast syndication platforms.
Podcast Index allows podcasters to add their podcast and connect your podcast to your own node, or use their service and they run a node for you. Users can set a specific sats per minute to listen, and the content creators stream payment by sats. This innovation is helping democratize podcasting, reducing censorship, and putting more money in the hands of creators.
How Lightning Helps Podcasters
Apps like Breez are making it easy and user-friendly to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments as a content creator. Breez has created a nice UX and the ability for podcasters to accept satoshi’s via their self-hosted lightning node.
Podcasters historically have had two things to overcome. Monetization and distribution. The Lightning Network solves the monetization problem and allows content creators to no longer fully rely on sponsorships. Did you know that Anchor takes 30% of podcaster’s ad revenues? Lightning facilitates the ability for P2P payments with no middlemen.
It is also a precedent for Spotify and Apple to censor content being created. The distribution has also improved with Lightning. Content creators can take content live themselves with no corporation censoring what they can or can not say. Adam created the podcast:value standard with Dave Jones standardizing the approach on how to take content live. Adam and Dave call this Podcasting 2.0. This new way of podcasting allows content creators to release directly to listeners without needing to rely on Apple or Spotify.
How Lightning Serves Listeners
Podcasts are the home of shilling products and services. We have all heard the ads at the beginning, midway, and end of a piece of our favorite podcast. These ads incentivize podcasters to be long-winded and over the top. Podcasters are paid based on listening times and engagement. If the incentive is more listening time = more money, listeners end up getting less quality content from podcasters. Allowing users to be spared from ads aligns the incentives of the podcaster with the listener. Content creators are now encouraged to create the highest quality content because their listeners are paying them directly. If a podcast is not adding value, the listener will stop streaming sats!
If you are a content creator or avid podcast listener your support of the Lightning Network will help create a stronger economy for individuals and small businesses. Check out Breez and Podcasting 2.0 and share your thoughts and feedback with us on twitter!
My favorite podcasting app
I have started using Fountain as my preferred podcasting 2.0 app. Fountain allows users to tip content creators in real-time with sats (satoshis). Sats are the smallest fraction of a bitcoin. This gives you the ability to tip less than a penny, and you can stream payments by the minute to content creators.
Join Fountain today
Check out a quick snippet below as our CEO, Graham Krizek shares about this innovation with Paul Barron.
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