You launched a “business tips” podcast in 2020. By 2023, you were competing with 4.5 million shows. In 2025, your download numbers flatlined while “Accounting for Creative Agencies”—a podcast with 1,200 listeners—just landed a five-figure sponsorship. The mass market gold rush is over. The future belongs to creators who abandoned “everyone” to serve someone. The … Read more
You publish a new episode. Thirty minutes later, Spotify has it. Apple Podcasts checks your feed… eventually. YouTube ignores it entirely because you didn’t manually upload. Your RSS feed—the backbone of podcasting for two decades—has become a second-class distribution channel, reliable but ignored, open but invisible. The technical foundation of the medium is being dismantled … Read more
You spent three years building a loyal audio audience—then Spotify emailed suggesting you upload video or risk algorithmic demotion. Your competitor’s YouTube channel just hit 100K subscribers with clips of the same conversations you’re having, while your download numbers stay flat. The platforms have chosen sides in a format war, and creators who picked the … Read more
You hit subscribe on a new show about historical mysteries. The host’s voice is warm, conversational, and oddly perfect—because it was synthesized in a server farm. The script wasn’t written over coffee-fueled mornings but assembled by algorithms analyzing trending topics. This is the invisible automation creeping into your feed, promising infinite content while threatening the … Read more
You hit “play” on your favorite show at 8:47 AM—except you’re not merging onto the highway, you’re walking from your bedroom to your home office. Your weekly download count stayed the same, but your listening time shifted from captive commute to stolen moments between Zoom calls. This silent migration of attention has reshaped an entire … Read more
Sarah opens her podcast app and stares at 47 unplayed episodes across 12 shows. She wants to listen but feels a weight in her chest. Last week she unsubscribed from three podcasts she used to love—not because they got worse, but because she couldn’t face the backlog. Her friend has the same problem: he calls … Read more
A listener opens Spotify, taps “Play” on the latest episode of their favorite true crime show, and lets autoplay run for three hours, algorithmically drifting through similar content they’ve never heard of. Another listener types “best business podcasts” into Google, spends twenty minutes reading reviews, and carefully subscribes to two shows to “try out.” Both … Read more
A listener opens Spotify, taps “Play” on the latest episode of their favorite true crime show, and lets autoplay run for three hours, algorithmically drifting through similar content they’ve never heard of. Another listener types “best business podcasts” into Google, spends twenty minutes reading reviews, and carefully subscribes to two shows to “try out.” Both … Read more
You block out three hours for an interview, set up your equipment, send the meeting link, and wait. Ten minutes past start time, you send a polite check-in. Twenty minutes in, you DM them on LinkedIn. Thirty minutes later, you’re staring at an empty Zoom room, calculating the sunk cost: prep time, research, the backup … Read more
You stare at the microphone, and your mind goes blank. Not the creative kind of blank—the exhausted kind. You’ve already said everything you know about your topic. Twice. The episode is due tomorrow, your editorial calendar mocks you with empty slots, and the last time you felt genuinely inspired was somewhere around episode 12. You’re … Read more