A Lovely 10C Site!

To me, this is not surprising, but a sad statement on closing off the openness of podcasting and the internet, and looking to lock it up in proprietary silos. Again, there should be ways to look to expand and extend RSS to do more of the things that Mignano talks about, including experiments with monetization and better analytics. Going straight proprietary maybe both the easier path, and the obvious one for a giant company… but that doesn't mean it's good for the internet or podcasting in general.

Of course, that's only one story related to this. The other one is Apple moving in a similar direction, adding the ability for podcasts to put up paywalls via Apple's podcast system (in which Apple will keep a whopping 30% of any subscription revenue). Whether by accident or not, Apple did help popularize podcasts -- and did keep it mostly open, even when there had been other opportunities to lock up the ecosystem. It had been a good thing that Apple did not go down that path in the past. However, now it looks like it's exploring that very thing.

I understand the business and economic logic of these companies doing this, but I worry about what it really means for the future of podcasting and the wonders and benefits of an open internet.

Sadly, the answer is yes at this point. Open podcasting is in huge trouble although I hope that I'm wrong.