Google+
Google Wave
Google Reader
Google cough podcast app

All shutdown by Google, which incase you’ve forgotten, owns YouTube.

That list only scratches the surface of the once innovative products laid to waste by the juggernaut. There’s an entire archive outlined in the Google Graveyard if you’d like scroll though.

“We want to make YouTube Music the ultimate destination for podcasters and fans alike” Rene Ritchie wrote in the post Shaping the Future of Podcasts with YouTube.

Let me get this straight: The future of my podcast lies in the hands of a video-first platform where my content is distributed through a music app, backed by a company that has the track record of shutting down services on a whim…including their own podcast app?!

Long live independent RSS.

Platforms are not on our side

Have we not learned our lesson over major platforms pulling the rug out from under us?

Rewind the clock back to the days of Facebook Pages where you were encouraged to grow your 1,000 fans, only to see the organic reach topped out at 5% of that number, but chucking $20 into the system would earn you a healthier 38% reach. Internet gambling.

Twitter adoption was largely built off the back of numerous apps that designed unique custom user experiences until their API was either shutdown or the cost of using it was too high to sustain the business. And this was pre-Elon.

Google has recently waged war (again) on their content creators that rely on search for the livelihood of their business, causing a drought in traffic with a hit to revenue small that publishers rely on. Go spend what you have left on ads.

YouTube creator payouts are at an all time low, with a ghost in the machine that tanks your stats from invalid traffic which YouTube hasn’t said much about. I’m earning 1/3 of what I made from a few years back, with 3x the views and a considerably higher volume of published videos.

YouTube, or any major platform, is not the savior we’re looking for.

But, I get it, podcasters are a tired bunch. Producing, recording, editing, promoting — rinse and repeat that 100’s of times for a slow uptick in listens — it’s tough.

Before you know it, you too are telling people to smash that subscribe button on your “podcast.”

Why does YouTube work?

Rene Ritchie says, “YouTube’s secret sauce is our recommendations. They help people discover something new or go deeper on what they love, while helping podcasters reach new audiences only found on YouTube.“

Emphasis on the only found on YouTube part. The beauty of open RSS publishing is that audiences can be found wherever they listen to podcasts. It’s simple math that open distribution has access to more humans than a single closed off platform.

There’s no denying that YouTube search is great. Videos are appealing, hovering over an appealing thumbnail is…appealing. You just don’t get that experience from the fragmented podcast industry.

I agree, the experience for searching audio isn’t as engaging or even comprehensive.

It’s why we have efforts like open source Podcasting 2.0 and the Podcast Standards project. Efforts underway to streamline the experience across the board albeit with much shallower pockets than the competition. It’s going to take time.

You don’t know it yet, but these open source movements from collaborators who actually care about podcasting, will be the heroes for the audio space when the dust settles in a few years.

If you put the features aside, YouTube also has two other key elements going for it: It’s familiar and it’s easy. That’s why YouTube is working for the tired podcaster.

You’ve spent so much energy making a show, now we’re going to ask you to work 5x harder to get discovered. And that’s where they get you.

It’s Time You Understand RSS

I’ve been podcasting for over a decade and spent nearly 3 years working at a podcasting hosting company. I’ve answered the question of “how to start a podcast” 100’s of times.

I know it’s complicated. I know RSS isn’t sexy. But you must look around and see the walls closing in on content creators.

Look at what happened when Spotify tried owning podcasts — an audio-first platform!

Joe Rogan, the largest podcast in the world is back to open publishing — through RSS and YouTube. Gating content only works for so long. It was more advantageous for Joe Rogan and his ad deals to be openly accessible everywhere than it was to be stuck in a walled garden of Spotify.

Follow the money. Now, the industry is letting YouTube waltz right in and become synonymous with podcasting.

Podcasting is hard, you have to treat it like a business, and you have to roll up your sleeves to build trust in an audience that will tune in every week. There is no algorithm or DIY ad network that acts as a steroid for artificial growth.

And this is the empty promise YouTube is putting in the face of podcast “executives” looking from the top down. Put aside that old run down RSS feed, come get this fresh new algo for your show!

YouTube-first podcasts are largely dominated by celebrities, athletes, or comedians that are “in the business.”

Equipped with a stable of managers, ad buyers, or production crews. What you’re not seeing is the inflated business of Hollywood behind the scenes. B-List celebrities are being sold at a premium per listen than you or I could only dream of.

Those brands being represented by the same buyer agencies also caught up in the inflated traditional ad business. It’s a true house of cards.

Don’t sleep on the fact that many of these podcast hosts also have a primary income from their real jobs. Be it acting gigs, comedy shows, or sport analysts on a TV network — if they need multiple streams of revenue — so do you and I.

Remember, Google mutilated their Feedburner product (RSS) and killed their Google Reader product (RSS) and their podcast app (RSS)!

Why? Because RSS is open and it’s a protocol they can’t inject their ads into. I mean, I’m sure they can, they just can’t do it as effectively and at scale. And how could Google back RSS? That would send a signal to the entire market that openly distributed content is good.

But it is, for you and me, not for big ad monetized social media platforms.

Your RSS feed is the calling card you can hand to someone to subscribe to your content. Not just a podcast, but your blog, or your newsletter. Platforms don’t want you to know about RSS or encourage the use of it — because it takes you out of the algorithm and the chance for them to sell ads against you.

Imagine a world if RSS had thrived and you knew your friends RSS feed, just like you knew their email address or website URL. There would be a lot more choice, more apps to experience content, you’d have more focused content feeds, less ads, less abusive algorithms — it would be a better place.

When podcasters and audience listeners start to say that YouTube channels are also podcasts, open RSS loses ground to a centralized platform. It’s that simple.

In The End

You have to decide what kind of experience you want to craft for your audience. Balance that with the work and effort needed to make a series of content successful. Whatever success means to you.

Weigh your time, energy, and creative bandwidth on audio vs video. Even if “YouTube podcasts” are trending right now, don’t make yourself do video. Audio experiences are just as effective, especially when you’re not trying to force a medium of content you’re not comfortable with.

Choosing YouTube isn’t wrong, I love my YouTube channel for publishing WordPress tutorials, but I also know that I’m locked in there. I don’t have control over that audience, so I funnel viewers to my newsletter and then deeper into my audio podcast experience.

Having a podcast appear as video on YouTube and as audio on your own feed is perfectly okay. If the shoe fits, wear it.

What we don’t want is a fleet of podcasters throughout the industry throwing up their hands in defeat trading in freely available RSS feeds in favor of a YouTube channel. And I certainly don’t want to hear from podcast industry experts touting YouTube as the savior of podcasting — discovery be damned!

YouTube has crushed 3 major RSS products already, and while they are supporting RSS feeds for audio now, the proof is in the pudding for how long it will last.

Open RSS allows you to freely move about the internet, gaining access to anyone that can paste your link into their listening app. It’s a particular freedom no other content creators on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram can do.

Don’t let YouTube swallow up another piece of the open web.

Go podcasting!