The Downfall Of Modern Podcasts

The speaker discusses the increasing number of podcasts and the challenges they face in terms of monetization. They talk about how some popular podcasts still include advertisements despite being on paid platforms. They also mention the controversy surrounding guests who contradict each other and the use of provocative titles and thumbnails to attract views. The speaker highlights the business aspect of podcasts, including sponsorship and commission codes. They caution listeners to be careful about trusting podcasts, as some may spread misinformation. The speaker also mentions the limited supply of good podcast guests, leading to the inclusion of controversial or divisive speakers. They explain confirmation bias and how people tend to seek information that aligns with their beliefs. I'm sure you've realised ever since the pandemic that absolutely everyone you've ever met has now got a podcast and this is not even plugged into anything but there is a big problem on the horizon that we're already starting to experience follow me now you're probably like what were you filming then? is it too much to ask to keep the camera on me? now problem number one is if you're like me I like listening to the Joe Rogan podcast so when he went over to Spotify we celebrated it and we were happy to pay that Spotify membership but then for some reason although we're paying Spotify the money he's still putting ads in the podcast so one day I'm in bed listening to an episode about to fall asleep and then bam this episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens like whoa so you're like hold on I'm paying you Spotify so I don't get ads and now I'm getting ads either way and they don't even play them at the beginning like Lex Friedman so you can skip through them and pretend you listen to them they put them bam come on over here over here come on so many of you you've probably heard of a podcast called Diary of a CEO with Stephen Bartlett and congratulations they just hit 5 million subscribers on YouTube which is amazing but there's a lot of controversy between the guests at the moment and all the guests seem to contradict each other and say different things but they're all renowned experts but being an expert isn't nearly enough because if you think about it if two companies are suing each other both companies will have experts and those both experts in the same field would disagree with each other just making someone an expert doesn't mean they're right or you wouldn't have people on different sides there are several components to operating a podcast in 2024 that people aren't thinking about podcasts are businesses they are not vessels or means of getting you free information although it may feel that way places like YouTube will pay you AdSense but when you start looking at these podcasts as businesses this is only a fraction maybe 10 to 20 percent of what that business is earning is being paid for by Google one of the main places you will earn money in a podcast is sponsors and the sponsor will pay depending on the amount of downloads or the amount of views because you are putting eyes and ears in front of their brand podcasts also use discount codes but they're not discount codes they're commission codes when you look at Huberman promoting Athletic Greens if you use this code for the discount it actually allows Athletic Greens to understand where they're giving their commission to and if we use Athletic Greens as an example you're not only looking at $50 commission per sale but every sale they're on in so no doubt a sponsor will not just pay the person to be mentioned they would then pay the person every time there's commission on their product and sales on their end so when the likes of Huberman are saying Athletic Greens is really good it makes them feel so much better they're not just looking at commission they're looking at recurring commission now what makes things interesting so if we look at a company like Huel Stephen Bartlett is a non-executive director of Huel which I assume means he has shares in the business so although I'm sure that Huel pay directly the CEO money every time Stephen Bartlett mentions Huel he's also inflating the portfolio of a business that he's got shares in and before I say that's terrible I do that every time I talk about Nutonic the world's first productivity drinks oh my shares in the business just went up so so far nothing really is wrong with this picture the problem starts becoming apparent when you start looking at guests in the beginning you want fantastic guests who can arrive and change people's lives and give people so much information and get massive amounts of views and grow your channel to 5 million subscribers but you will exhaust the amount of great guests very soon and you can get those guests back on or what we're starting to see is you bring on guests not who are known for being factually correct or objective but that you know will cause controversy cause a rift between the followers cause massive amounts of engagement cause people to be so outraged that they go and watch the podcast just to see what's factually incorrect in it and of course get huge amounts of views you'll even notice that the thumbnail for the episode is changed every hour on the hour 12 hours after the podcast is released to see which thumbnail causes people to click on the most there is a science to this and they're choosing titles that are provocative, intriguing but we're now at the point where people are just looking to piss people off and if that means you're using misinformation if it brings you views and it brings you listens and it brings you attention that's not only going to bring you more money from sponsors it's also going to give you more prospects to sell the business in which you're promoting and all you need to do is check the comment section of these guests when they're announced there was even a post by the vegan doctor that I was meant to show you guys here but I think it's been deleted because the comments were so bad on it but although you can cause a lot of controversy from the amount of people that are coming to your page if it boosts your revenue you will continue to do that habit or endeavor it's a positive feedback loop so the biggest issue you see in models like Dyer over CEO is that it's very apparent this is becoming more of a business operation than it is trying to get good quality information to the forefront of the listeners let's have a look at some of the comments I'm honestly starting to get tired of all these health food experts if I followed every advice of the guests on the show I'd have to change my diet every week how do you elaborate all of these contradictory statements from all of your different guests I watch all the episodes and I find it really hard and so many of the things that people are saying on podcasts are just not true and a great example of this would be the misinformation that Ben Carpenter put out this week I'll tell you what Ben I'm even going to show people your reel because I think it's really important 100 normal individuals 25 in four different groups one group one liter of sugared soda per day for six months one group one liter of diet soda per day for six months one group one liter of milk per day for six months final group one liter of water per day for six months the one liter of soda per day in six months gained 10 kilos the sugary soda the sugary soda 10 kilos the one liter of water per day lost 2 kilos one liter of milk per day no change presumably that was full fat milk we're talking about Europe full fat milk they like their full fat milk no change and finally the key the kicker to the whole thing diet soda the one liter of diet soda what would you predict their weight would do? more weight loss than in the water group based on my understanding of the literature they gained two kilos podcasts talking about science love it podcasts including references in their show notes especially love it podcasts that totally misrepresent what the study actually said don't love it quite so much here is what that study actually showed firstly it was 60 people not 100 secondly it wasn't full fat milk thirdly most importantly those incredible sounding numbers they are absolute bullshit he claimed soda resulted in 10 kilos of weight gain two kilos from diet soda no change from milk two kilos weight loss from water guess what the study actually showed no significant body weight change in any group there was a tiny trend for weight and fat gain in the soda group but it was not 10 kilograms it was a measly 1.25 kilograms drinking the sugary soda did increase ectopic fat levels and other studies show they can promote weight and fat gain even if that wasn't seen in this study anyone who even bothers to skim read the abstract will know that what he is saying isn't even close to factually correct my point is please be careful which podcasts you trust even if you happen to like the people behind the microphone and the biggest issue is going to be this supply and demand are not in a position to serve each other because think of it you've got Joe Rogan you've got Lex Friedman you've got Chris Williamson you've got Stephen Bartlett you've got all these well-established businesses that are all fighting over a supply of good speakers and once they've been interviewed on one podcast their stocks are diluted because people go well I listen to Matthew Walker and Joe Rogan so I'm not going to listen to him and Chris Williamson so you have all these people fighting for this really small amount of supply of actually good people to have on when you can't access those people you need to start going to the bottom of the bucket and finding people that are divisive controversial or that are just going to say things against the status quo like we just saw in Ben Carpenter's reel people are going to cherry pick studies or worse yet make up their own outcome of the studies because people at the moment are making a snapshot from these reels that are put out and taking that as evidence even this guy in my DMs you might have to throw in the towel soon I was like mate you've watched one reel I said it's already been debunked you nonce which in English means paedophile just keeping you on your toes haha dickhead then sends me Jason Fung one of the most notorious charlatans of misinformation the last thing I'm going to leave you with is something called a confirmation bias and the confirmation bias is where you go out and seek information that already fits your narrative and you ignore everything else that doesn't the current state of the world is that people will see something that someone says in 90 seconds they won't reference studies they won't reference any literature they'll just say it with enough conviction that people think it's true they will then take that information and try and convert people around them this is causing mass confusion and the big issue with all of this is when so much information is contradicting people won't listen to any of it it's a real shame because podcasts for so many years was such an amazing way for you to bolster your knowledge but now it's being drip-fed bullshit so that other companies can profit off of getting more downloads, views and listeners it's the sad reality of the world and I don't see it getting better anytime soon thanks for watching