[HN Gopher] Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 306 points
       Date   : 2021-08-25 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | I wonder if Rogan would 'not lose influence' had he changed
       | nothing.
       | 
       | Feels like these kind of personalities, while they can have long
       | careers, growth / reach isn't infinite or sustainable.
        
         | motohagiography wrote:
         | I was looking for who these listeners were switching to, or
         | what the change was relative to overall podcast listenership,
         | and was totally surprised the authors didn't include a base
         | rate in their analysis. Not including base rates in references
         | to anything quantitative is like writing spam emails with
         | spelling mistakes because being dumb enough not to notice is a
         | good proxy for being dumb enough to buy what you are selling.
         | Though I doubt whether the people at the Verge have the
         | sophistication to be intentionally fraudulent. They just need
         | enough noise or to craft a conflict around. However it's a good
         | example of data-horoscope journalism, where you backfit your
         | narrative to points on a line.
         | 
         | Rogan is probably the most successful podcaster in the world by
         | a variety of possible metrics, and I'm not sure what a
         | reasonable expectation of how that plays out would be. Does he
         | transform into a being of pure light and ascend into space, or,
         | does he just do a job he likes until he doesn't anymore, and
         | moves on to something else?
         | 
         | The Verge should just say what they mean, which is that Rogan
         | talks to off-brand people and you shouldn't be tempted by how
         | good the conversations are because it will not align you with
         | crumbling mainstream narratives, and instead you should spend
         | your time engaged with their clickbait talking points factory
         | deciphering their adolescent purple sophistry.
        
         | heyparkerj wrote:
         | I listened to Joe a lot when I was doing manual labor in
         | 2013-2014ish. Like almost every single episode. I was always
         | able to intake the things I thought were interesting and laugh
         | off stuff I thought was dumb or unconvincing, but I do remember
         | thinking that one day the greater internet will realize that
         | his podcast is littered with content that people could easily
         | misconstrue and start a real uproar about with sufficient
         | motivation. Based on this, I think people shining a light on
         | some of the dumber things that a self proclaimed dumb guy says
         | while recording himself talking for 10 hours a week, and
         | becoming a bit of an internet meme in the process was
         | inevitable - and that's before he started saying whatever the
         | hell he's been saying about vaccines and masks.
        
           | duxup wrote:
           | I've thought about the balance between "I don't know and I'm
           | going to think out loud here." and doing that as
           | entertainment and ... where that leads to some responsibility
           | for saying some stuff that you really don't know that is dead
           | wrong and ...
           | 
           | I duno. It's a weird world.
        
         | toofy wrote:
         | yeah, i think he kind of peaked shortly before the period where
         | he was so obsessive with his attempts to outrage people over
         | pronouns. i seemed to stop hearing about him around that time
         | other than the headlines surrounding the spotify deal of
         | course.
        
       | cratermoon wrote:
       | Good.
        
       | chrisco255 wrote:
       | Spotify is just not set up for long-form video content. The
       | discovery aspect of YouTube is one reason why it reels you in.
       | You're scrolling through your feed, you see an interesting clip,
       | and you click on it. Another big part of YouTube is the comment
       | section. Spotify lacks on both fronts. I also think the JRE clips
       | were a big part of what sucked people into watch full epsiodes.
       | If a 5-7 minute JRE clip were interesting I might jump in and
       | watch the whole episode. I don't think they've done that or done
       | it as well on Spotify.
        
         | dragonelite wrote:
         | Those short clips did indeed pulled in me in to just put a JRE
         | episode on the background while working xD
        
         | gordon_freeman wrote:
         | This. The flexibility to search for a video coupled with YT's
         | spontaneous recommendations is something unique to YouTube. So
         | many times I have seen a clip about PBS Newshour episode on YT
         | and then end up watching whole Newshour episode or most of it.
         | Having all videos on varied lengths in same platform makes it
         | easy to consume based on the time available.
        
         | DantesKite wrote:
         | He still posts Joe Rogan clips and I genuinely still enjoy
         | listening to those.
        
       | daughart wrote:
       | Just like Howard Stern (note, SiriusXM also owns Spotify). They
       | traded a broader audience and greater influence for stability and
       | gigantic paychecks. E.g., in Howard's case, even though his
       | personal influence shrunk, his importance to Sirius/Spotify grew
       | as a fraction of the subscriber base is dedicated to one talent
       | and would otherwise unsubscribe. Howard's deal has been renewed a
       | number of times now. I can't blame anyone involved.
        
         | adamrezich wrote:
         | this makes more sense for Stern because his audience is much
         | narrower than Rogan's. Stern moving from terrestrial radio gave
         | him more "freedom," whereas the same can't be said for Rogan.
         | also, Stern took the deal when he had been established voice in
         | radio for decades, whereas Rogan was (to my understanding) just
         | reaching his height of popularity before the exclusivity deal
         | began.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | > this makes more sense for Stern because his audience is
           | much narrower than Rogan's.
           | 
           | In what way was Stern's audience narrower at all than
           | Rogan's? Stern _narrowed_ his audience when he moved to
           | Sirius, but so did Rogan, apparently. When Stern was in
           | syndication and on E!, he had as general an audience as any
           | radio personality (back when people listened to the radio.)
           | Rogan has a very narrow demographic as far as I can see, and
           | virtually that entire demo is a subset of who listened to or
           | watched Stern during what was something like a 15 year long
           | peak.
        
             | adamrezich wrote:
             | > Rogan has a very narrow demographic as far as I can see,
             | and virtually that entire demo is a subset of who listened
             | to or watched Stern during what was something like a 15
             | year long peak.
             | 
             | really? I was under the impression that Rogan skewed much
             | younger. (at _least_ compared to the Stern audience when he
             | made his platform jump.) and sure Stern narrowed his
             | audience when he moved to satellite, but wasn 't he already
             | a bit past his prime at that point?
        
         | eplanit wrote:
         | Stern tried to adapt, and with a degree of success. He came
         | from the "Shock Jock", Andrew Dice Clay era, but shifted in
         | recent years to become much softer and "woke".
        
           | cylinder714 wrote:
           | emacsen/Serge Wroclawski's piece, "Stern Fan In Recovery,"
           | touches on this and the abuse his employees deal with:
           | https://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2021/07/03/stern-fan-in-
           | recove...
        
         | jswrenn wrote:
         | Correction: SiriusXM owns Pandora, not Spotify.
         | 
         | https://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releas...
        
         | rajbot wrote:
         | > SiriusXM also owns Spotify
         | 
         | Sirius XM (nasdaq:SIRI) and Spotify (nyse:SPOT) are two
         | different companies.
         | 
         | Sirius XM bought pandora in 2019.
        
       | LatteLazy wrote:
       | Its a vicious cycle: he got a bit crazy and anti-vax, hes in
       | Austin so its 10 times harder to get good guests, and that makes
       | it all the easier to lean into being antivax etc.
        
       | andrewon wrote:
       | The drop after switch makes sense. There's gotta to be
       | significant number of people won't switch to Spotify just because
       | of Joe Rogan's show. Half of them is about right.
       | 
       | His show is just one of many in my queue. I won't go through the
       | troubleshoot of using two apps for podcast just because of him.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | diragon wrote:
       | Spotify snatching exclusive podcasts made me quit Spotify for
       | music as well. That's a grab that I do not tolerate.
       | 
       | This further cements the fact that IPO is a near certain death
       | sentence for a product.
        
         | LegitShady wrote:
         | its too bad the app for youtube music is so horrible. How does
         | it still not have a horizontal mode? How many goldfish are they
         | paying to develop that app?
        
       | mark_l_watson wrote:
       | I don't blaming him for taking the money from Spotify. He has
       | ensured his descendants' wealth for probably a few generations.
       | Good for him.
       | 
       | I still see clips of him on YouTube. How does that work given his
       | deal with Spotify, anyone know?
        
         | wrink wrote:
         | They are are allowed to upload snippets but are limited in
         | length and number of clips they are permitted to upload per
         | episode. I assume they provide the allowance for purely
         | promotional reasons. Personally, I find the clips too short to
         | be particularly interesting
        
       | theodric wrote:
       | I know we're supposed to only contribute commentary that
       | productively advances the conversation, but the thought that
       | keeps bubbling back to the top for me is "lol noob, you sold out;
       | you got what you asked for"
       | 
       | -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
       | MauroIksem wrote:
       | Not surprised..i stopped listening when he moved. It was
       | entertaining but not enough for me to move podcast platforms.
        
       | eplanit wrote:
       | Rumble is gaining popularity; maybe he should move there.
        
       | kiawe_fire wrote:
       | I noticed a similar trend with Howard Stern and others once
       | signing on with SiriusXM.
       | 
       | My unsubstantiated take: audio has to be ubiquitous to work. It's
       | somehow more commoditized than video or other mediums.
       | 
       | If it's a radio show / podcast, you already have your "player" of
       | choice (AM/FM radio, or a particular mobile app) and you expect
       | the audio to work like tuning a radio station to your syndicated
       | show, or putting in a CD, and the player just plays it.
       | 
       | For some reason with video streaming, we equate services like
       | Netflix with TV networks, so exclusivity is ok.
       | 
       | But audio apps and services don't feel like different stations or
       | CDs, they feel like different mediums entirely. So while Netflix
       | is to Hulu as NBC is to HGTV, Spotify is to Apple Music as CDs
       | are to MiniDisc.
        
       | jazzyjackson wrote:
       | This is less a problem for Joe than it is for his advertisers. I
       | wonder about the effectiveness of pre-roll ads vs extremely
       | annoying mid-sentence ad breaks scattered through the episode.
       | Use to be joe was one of the more enjoyable blocks of 3 hour
       | content to listen to because there were no commercial breaks.
        
       | m0zg wrote:
       | Maybe it's for the best. He's a comedian who doesn't know
       | anything about anything (and freely admits this to be the case),
       | he shouldn't really have that much "influence". $100M in the bank
       | sure is nice, I bet.
        
       | sammalloy wrote:
       | I agree with everything that's already been said in this thread,
       | but I've noticed one thing that hasn't been discussed at all.
       | 
       | I live in a rural area where network connectivity is poor at
       | worst and intermittent at best. I spent years watching Rogan on
       | YouTube with nothing but network problems. Watching Rogan was a
       | chore in the previous scenario, and YouTube did not make it easy.
       | 
       | Once Rogan moved to Spotify, I never had a single problem with
       | network connectivity. I could use the app to seamlessly switch
       | between audio and video, and it was easy to both find and browse
       | previous podcasts and quickly queue them up to play or watch. I
       | could never do this before in a poor connectivity environment,
       | but Spotify made all of this possible.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | Youtube automatically switches to the lowest bitrate if it
         | detects a slow network. Was it still too slow at 360p?
         | 
         | I used NewPipe to download the YT vids ahead of time. It has
         | the option to download only the audio streams, so a lot of
         | bandwidth can be saved that way as well.
        
           | sammalloy wrote:
           | I should note, I was not using the YouTube app, I was using
           | the Safari browser on my iPhone all these years. To me, it
           | seemed like a buffering problem, even at 360p. For whatever
           | reason, Spotify loads immediately (or at worst, within five
           | seconds) and gives me the best experience. Thanks for the tip
           | about NewPipe.
        
       | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
       | His move to Spotify isn't why he sucked, but Joe really has gone
       | off the ego end. If you listen to his early ustream podcasts, he
       | was just funny stoner. Now he's just lost touch.
        
       | paulpauper wrote:
       | This is the weakest analysis I have ever seen for an article.
       | It's just noise. The sample size is too small to make any
       | inference. A combination of people quarantined due to covid , the
       | election, and BLM hype is why 2020 was such a big year. Joe Rogan
       | is still hugely influential. His comments in 2021 about vaccines
       | made headlines everywhere.
        
       | glonq wrote:
       | I stopped listening to him around the time that he signed to
       | spotify. But I think that was coincidental. I just got sick of
       | how he's such a nutter and a dummy -- even though I like many
       | things about who he is and what he does.
        
       | ram_rar wrote:
       | Spotify video leaves a lot to be desired as compared to youtube.
       | They should stick to audio and improve on it. I dont understand,
       | why do I need to go through ads for JR show even though I pay for
       | spotify premium.
       | 
       | The best part of youtube is that one could search through and get
       | excerpts of the video. I could easily find JRs tidbits without
       | the need of going through the entire interview. I still see some
       | of the older excerpts in youtube, but less so in spotify.
        
       | DantesKite wrote:
       | He can always move back to YouTube after his Spotify deal is
       | over, no problem.
       | 
       | Joe Rogan never started the podcast for influence. It was just
       | him shooting the breeze with friends.
       | 
       | It just turned out that he was also one of the best interviewers
       | on the planet.
       | 
       | Good on Joe. Make that money. YouTube will always be waiting.
        
       | towb wrote:
       | Other than the show changing since the move Spotify just isn't a
       | good media player, and it's a shitty podcast app.
        
       | EGreg wrote:
       | Why is he confined to spotify?
       | 
       | Some centralized group i restricting his rights like the music
       | industry used to bury albums and bands in the 80s?
       | 
       | Meanwhile: https://www.rap-up.com/2021/08/10/tory-lanez-
       | sells-1-million...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | altacc wrote:
       | Hearing "Exclusively on Spotify" on any podcast ad is a sure-fire
       | way to make sure I never listen to an episode. One of the great
       | features of podcasts is the flexibility in listening platform and
       | I'd really rather not switch to Spotify's substandard user
       | experience.
        
         | radicalbyte wrote:
         | I subscribe to Spotify but I dropped Rogan when he left. I have
         | all my other podcasts in one app, listening history and all.
         | 
         | Now I have to drop that because Spotify want to play monopoly?
         | S** that.
        
           | tantalor wrote:
           | Scratching my head what "S**" means
        
             | Fordec wrote:
             | I assume "Sod", used in more British influenced cultures.
             | Short for sodomy/sodomize. Usually a stand in for "F**" but
             | a bit more cavalier/dismissive than angry.
        
               | adolph wrote:
               | That does sound spicier than placing tiles of vegetation.
        
             | Ardon wrote:
             | Sod? Maybe? People say "Sod that" in Britain. I don't know
             | why you'd censor that though.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | They're buying up a lot of high-profile independent ones. Dax
         | Shepard's Armchair Expert joined recently, and now the RSS feed
         | is pretty bare.
        
         | xnx wrote:
         | So true. I wonder if RSS could make a comeback if it were
         | marketed as "podcast for articles".
        
           | soheil wrote:
           | No because no popular publisher would stay the moment a $100m
           | exclusive offer is made.
        
       | AlbertCory wrote:
       | I can't tell Mr. Rogan what to do, but I'll just quote from the
       | wise old man, Neil Young:
       | 
       | Ain't singin' for Pepsi, Ain't singin' for Coke, Ain't singin'
       | for no one, Makes me look like a joke.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ssijak wrote:
       | Lately it is getting harder to get an episode I want to listen
       | to. 70-80% are comedian friend episodes which I have 0%
       | inclination to listen to (I wonder how many people listen to them
       | compared to other episodes) and then there are 10-20% guests
       | either from MMA or boring 20x already told story about
       | gender/vaccines/masks/invermectin/etc. And then there are 10% of
       | interesting guests. Previously on youtube it was much better. I
       | even enjoy listening to some quacks, like Graham Hanckok because
       | he has interesting stories, but he does not even has that lately.
        
       | clipradiowallet wrote:
       | To me, Joe Rogan is permanently and fondly associated with the
       | episodes of Chappelle Show with Tyrone Biggums.
        
       | lanevorockz wrote:
       | Joe Rogan knew his days on Big Tech Pravda were counted ... he
       | took his audience and went to Spotify where he took the profit
       | upfront. Much smarter than most people that only follow the
       | leader and don't have one shred of critical thought.
        
         | ed25519FUUU wrote:
         | This sounds right to me. Big tech is very eager to deplatform
         | anyone who holds contrarian views against the status quo, and
         | this is especially true with regards to vaccine and politics.
         | 
         | In some ways being on Spotify with a multimillion dollar
         | contract actually offers some decent protection. Hopefully he's
         | got a good contract.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | devwastaken wrote:
       | That's fine. An uneducated guy bringing on other uneducated guys
       | that talk about something as if they're experts. Joe is an
       | "average dude" who loves his disinformation and nodding his head
       | to whatever BS someone says. People like words, personalities,
       | hand waving. That's not where truth comes from. Truth is a hard
       | fought battle that doesn't come to you in a podcast. It comes in
       | written words, proofs, and is filled with uncertainty. Actual
       | experts dont give black and white answers, they provide the
       | information and context. People don't like that because it's
       | complicated.
        
         | hospes wrote:
         | >> An uneducated guy bringing on other uneducated guys that
         | talk about something as if they're experts.
         | 
         | He often has leading scientists and subject matter experts on
         | his podcasts.
         | 
         | >> Joe is an "average dude"...
         | 
         | Average dude who:                 - Created one of the largest
         | English language podcasts.
         | 
         | - Is a successful comedian who writes his own material.
         | 
         | - Is a leading martial arts commentator and holds black belt
         | himself.
         | 
         | - Made $30M last year plus made $100M from the Spotify deal.
         | 
         | I am not sure what is your metric that makes him average.
        
         | FullKirby wrote:
         | I heard experts give nuanced opinions on his podcast
        
           | devwastaken wrote:
           | I hear "experts" on the news too, yet they're also the source
           | of conspiracy nuts. Why is that? Because they have no
           | honesty, and also run many fakers.
        
         | sk2020 wrote:
         | > That's fine. An uneducated guy bringing on other uneducated
         | guys that talk about something as if they're experts.
         | 
         | I'm not sure that's distinct from the internet commentariat
         | here or elsewhere.
        
       | Zelphyr wrote:
       | Money aside, I personally feel the Spotify deal was terrible for
       | Rogan. He does more for Spotify than they do for him. Not least
       | of which because Spotify, while pretty great for music, is
       | _terrible_ as a podcast player.
       | 
       | And, yeah, he has gone off the deep end since the Spotify deal.
       | Somebody dumping a giant basket of cash on your doorstep probably
       | does the ego no favors.
        
         | ssijak wrote:
         | Spotify is terrible for podcasts, but 100mil $ is enough (on
         | top of $$$ he already has) to not care about nuances of does he
         | gives them more than they gave him.
        
           | busymom0 wrote:
           | I think 100 million isn't much considering the amount of
           | influence he has. I guess getting an upfront 100 million is
           | better than over the years though. Does anyone know how long
           | his contract is with Spotify? It's it's longer than 2-3 years
           | then he's losing money imo.
        
       | LinuxBender wrote:
       | At first I thought he would be ok. His original gripe with
       | Youtube was the censorship of controversial guests. Either he or
       | Spotify prevented most of the controversial videos from being
       | imported into Spotify so I guess the problem remains. Is there a
       | platform that allows any/all controversial guests?
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | The internet.
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | Advertisers don't want to advertise next to controversial
         | guests, so if there's another platform they don't have 100
         | megabucks to buy content with (I mean, podcasting is the most
         | open platform of all before "exclusive podcasts" became a
         | thing)
        
         | opan wrote:
         | He could use something like peertube or funkwhale.
        
           | asdff wrote:
           | or joerogan.com
        
       | LatteLazy wrote:
       | Anyone know any good alternatives?
       | 
       | I listen to the Rachman Review on geo-politics and China Talk.
       | But i dont think anyone else has as wide a range as Joe. Tim
       | Ferris is ok but he's way more niche.
       | 
       | https://www.ft.com/rachman-review
       | 
       | https://chinatalkshow.libsyn.com/rss
        
       | knorker wrote:
       | No wonder. Spotify is the most broken piece of shit on the app
       | stores by far.
       | 
       | Hey, let me download these so i can listen on the plane. Oh, the
       | app just hangs on startup when you're in airplane mode. Well
       | that's pointless.
       | 
       | And on and on.
       | 
       | It's a wonder anyone even _can_ listen if they wanted to.
       | 
       | Sorry, this comment is probably not HN material, but every time I
       | use Spotify it makes me angry from how it just doesn't work.
        
         | Mountain_Skies wrote:
         | Spotify has invested heavily in podcasts, not just Joe Rogan
         | but a whole range of them at high costs. It baffles me that
         | they would spend so much money on content and not invest in app
         | development and design. Some businesses seem to have a major
         | hate boner against paying for an appropriate number of high
         | quality developers and designers. It's very penny proud and
         | pound foolish.
        
           | spideymans wrote:
           | I'm disappointed that Spotify in particular is going through
           | this. They had a best-in-class user experience just a few
           | short years ago.
        
         | cpach wrote:
         | I actually like Spotify. For _music_ , though. Listening to
         | podcasts in a music app - makes no sense to me. I have Overcast
         | for that purpose and I see no reason to switch. I can
         | understand that it was a good deal for Rogan personally if he
         | got 100 million USD for exclusivity but for the average podcast
         | host I believe that an open platform is much better.
        
           | hammyhavoc wrote:
           | As an artist I do not like getting $50 per 1m plays.
        
         | shkkmo wrote:
         | Spotify works absolutely fine for me in Airplane mode. The
         | reason I pay for Spotify is because it is the nest solution I
         | have found for easily curating music for offline playback since
         | I don't have unlimited data and I'm often outside of good
         | coverage areas.
         | 
         | It certainly isn't perfect and there are aspects of the UI I
         | find frustrating, but offline access and playback are the
         | features that seem to work the best.
         | 
         | Edit: I also don't use Spotify for any podcasts and use other
         | software since there are lots of great options for offline
         | podcast listening that are way better than Spotify.
        
       | vannevar wrote:
       | It's questionable whether online 'influencers' actually influence
       | anyone beyond getting them to watch or listen to their show. What
       | they definitely have is an audience, and that is valuable to the
       | advertisers and marketers who _do_ influence people, as well as
       | prospective guests who want to promote themselves or a cause. I
       | think influencers ' main value for advertisers is acting as a
       | magnet for certain demographics, providing another way to do
       | targeted marketing.
        
         | psyc wrote:
         | Well, there's this:
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28302725
        
           | Spivak wrote:
           | Which is an absolutely fascinating case-study! It's easy to
           | just write it off as "kids mimicking content creator for
           | attention" but it goes so much deeper than this because it's
           | a learned subconscious reaction to stress. It's like tapping
           | your feet or biting your nails but interesting because it's
           | verbal. It's kinda like if you say "like" or "um" to fill
           | space when talking you never really have to think about it
           | but you can stop if you practice.
        
           | vannevar wrote:
           | Maybe Joe's viewers will all start doing stand-up. :-)
           | 
           | There was a marketing study of influencers from Rakuten
           | Marketing that indicates that advertising through influencer
           | channels produces positive sales results. But again, it's not
           | clear that the influencer actually drove the purchases,
           | versus just drawing an audience that was predisposed to make
           | those purchases in the first place.
           | 
           | https://www.iab.com/wp-
           | content/uploads/2019/03/Rakuten-2019-...
        
         | elliekelly wrote:
         | If influencers didn't "influence" then advertisers wouldn't pay
         | them. That's all "influence" is. Just a dressed up name for
         | marketing.
        
           | vannevar wrote:
           | Not true. The owner of a TV station gets paid, and they
           | aren't influencing anyone. They're simply brokering
           | advertising. I'm open to evidence that influencers actually
           | exert personal influence on their audience, I just haven't
           | seen any yet.
        
       | diebeforei485 wrote:
       | It's unfortunate. Some of his guests are quite interesting. I
       | appreciated him having Abby Martin on the show.
       | 
       | I have no idea why covid is such a popular topic on podcasts. Do
       | people actually like hearing more about it, don't they already
       | hear about it every day?
        
       | jdprgm wrote:
       | It's been frustrating watching the Spotify (and general movement)
       | with podcasts fragmenting and going exclusive. Spotify won with
       | music because it improved upon the existing state of listening to
       | music and offered a free or cheap solution that was even a
       | compelling alternative to piracy.
       | 
       | Podcasts for the most part were in the ideal state for consumers,
       | almost always free and mostly client independent distributed w/
       | RSS. I don't think there is much of any argument that Spotify can
       | improve that state for consumers by taking a podcast exclusive.
       | These deals are just payouts for the hosts not investments that
       | make the shows better. Most even very successful podcasts likely
       | have low opex (some exceptions like NYT Daily) and don't benefit
       | from a big pile of cash.
       | 
       | On a different note regarding the Rogan Deal, Spotify took ages
       | to add video streaming support on Apple TV (main way I would
       | catch Rogan) which basically caused me to quit casual watching.
       | They also only recently added offline playback for Apple Watch
       | and even then it's premium exclusive and requires manual
       | downloading of eps. I don't understand at all why an enormous
       | company like Spotify is so neglectful of the entire apple
       | ecosystem.
        
         | gsich wrote:
         | Podcasts without RSS are not podcasts. Sure you can have
         | several distribution methods, but if not one of them is RSS ...
        
           | mastrsushi wrote:
           | > Podcasts without RSS are not podcasts
           | 
           | The rest of the world seems to think otherwise....
        
         | seanf wrote:
         | _I don 't understand at all why an enormous company like
         | Spotify is so neglectful of the entire apple ecosystem._
         | 
         | Part of this might be the legal friction between Spotify and
         | Apple in the past. Here's an article that describes a coalition
         | that Epic Games, Spotify, and others formed just last year to
         | counter Apple's platform cut.
         | https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/epic-spotify-and-oth...
        
           | judge2020 wrote:
           | The situation isn't much better on desktop; I don't think
           | they're specifically neglecting Apple.
        
           | teekert wrote:
           | They are unionizing...
        
         | dalbasal wrote:
         | It's all competition for monopoly. No one "owned" podcasting,
         | like itunes own streaming music and youtube own free-to-air TV.
         | Spotify is trying to be the one that owns it.
         | 
         | They bought exclusivity to as many top podcasts as they could
         | in order to start centralize podcasting on their platform.
         | Eventually enough momentum shifts, and all the other podcasters
         | have to go where users go, spotify. They may or may not
         | succeed.
         | 
         | The whole thing is quite sad. Podcasts are/were one the the
         | free digital medias. No mediation. Standard protocol. The
         | client is just a client. No one tells you what to say, or
         | controls who listens to what. I wish FB and youtube were that.
         | 
         | We the geeks have done a terrible job of defining and promoting
         | digital freedom. Failed to find a way that doesn't sound like a
         | paranoid eff rant. I don't think Joe really understood that RSS
         | is a Free (as in freedom) media, perhaps the last. He probably
         | thought about it as Youtube-vs-Spotify, with Apple and other
         | RSS clients being more of the same.
        
           | mikewave wrote:
           | > Spotify is trying to be the one that owns it.
           | 
           | If you're interested in pushing back on this, the Podcasting
           | 2.0 community welcomes you. Check out
           | https://podcastindex.org/ for details.
           | 
           | Podcast 2.0 apps have more metadata, chapters, cover art that
           | can change like a slideshow during an episode, etc.
        
           | jnosCo wrote:
           | I think you're giving Rogan too much credit if you think he
           | even for a second would care about Freedom while staring at a
           | 9 figure check.
        
           | teawrecks wrote:
           | > No one "owned" podcasting, like itunes own streaming
           | music...Podcasts are/were one the the free digital medias.
           | 
           | Ironic considering the origin of the term "podcast".
        
         | Covzire wrote:
         | The ads on Spotify for paying US users is what keeps me off of
         | it for the most part. You can fast forward but it's a gigantic
         | pain in the ass.
         | 
         | Their UX is awful too compared to a simple web app, they should
         | just clone a basic Youtube/Odysee/Rumble functionality for
         | their video side.
        
           | xxpor wrote:
           | >You can fast forward but it's a gigantic pain in the ass.
           | 
           | Does Spotify not support FF == skip 10 seconds forward that
           | every other podcast player does? I have genuinely no idea,
           | but it wouldn't surprise me.
        
             | ub99 wrote:
             | These long ads are actually separate tracks, so you can
             | just skip to the end. The pain in the ass aspect comes
             | mostly from the fact that not everyone has the app open in
             | front of them.
        
             | gmueckl wrote:
             | When playing podcasts, Spotify skips 15 seconds forwards or
             | backwards. When playing music, it skips to the next track
             | or the start of the current track. But you still have to
             | actively skip ads, which is annoying.
        
           | dadver wrote:
           | Wait, -paying- users get ads in the US? Then why do they pay?
        
             | Covzire wrote:
             | I'm assuming for the privilege of fast forwarding them, but
             | I'm not sure, it's probably the biggest reason I can't feel
             | any affinity for the platform at all. I'm happy to chip in
             | for the service like i do with Youtube Premium, but come
             | on. They're not short ads either, and I think most of them
             | are put in place by Joe Rogan himself because they're often
             | him going on for 2-3 minutes.
        
             | dntrkv wrote:
             | It's only the ads that the podcasters put in themselves.
             | They are not the Spotify ads.
        
               | ub99 wrote:
               | This makes me wonder... would Spotify allow ads in music?
               | Can I upload a music track that has an ad in the middle?
               | Hmm...
        
               | kingofpandora wrote:
               | I don't have Spotify, but check if The Who Sell Out is
               | there since that has ads in it.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out
        
               | ub99 wrote:
               | Pretty sure they used fake ads, but it's a good precedent
               | anyway.
               | 
               | Edit: and yes the album is available on Spotify in full.
        
               | serf wrote:
               | > Pretty sure they used fake ads, but it's a good
               | precedent anyway.
               | 
               | the ads aren't fake.. well, not all of them -- they're
               | included ironically -- and many aspects of that album
               | generated legal issues for the band.[0]
               | 
               | [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who_Sell_Out
        
               | FillardMillmore wrote:
               | The whole album was supposed to be a play on a pirate
               | radio station if memory serves, and a damn good one at
               | that. Probably my favorite Who album honestly (besides
               | Live at Leeds, of course).
        
               | p49k wrote:
               | Even the podcasts that Spotify owns and produces have
               | ads. So in that case they are putting ads in their own
               | podcasts for their own paying customers.
        
               | paulryanrogers wrote:
               | It does seem like double-dipping. But I imagine they will
               | continue to include more and more advertising until they
               | reached the threshold where people unsubscribe.
        
               | njovin wrote:
               | It's odd, though, that Rogan's podcast only started doing
               | mid-episode ads after the move to Spotify. Prior to the
               | move the only ads were at the beginning of the episode.
        
               | jack_pp wrote:
               | I've never heard ads on Rogan's podcast in the past few
               | years, this might be a US only thing
        
               | paulryanrogers wrote:
               | Maybe analytics indicated that people were skipping the
               | first chunk of the show to avoid the ads. I know that is
               | a common feature of other podcast players.
        
           | ub99 wrote:
           | I am surprised you are getting downvoted. Very long ad breaks
           | on paid accounts are unacceptable and the reason I refuse to
           | listen to this podcast.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | notRobot wrote:
         | Spotify sucks on Android too - so idk what they think they're
         | doing. I think iOS (specifically just iPhone) is the only place
         | where they appear to work on improving their app.
        
           | smolyeet wrote:
           | I don't think so, least in part. Spotify is continuously
           | petty against apple (for good reason) but their users always
           | have to pay the price and not have features or get them super
           | late. The Spotify app on an Android is pretty good and can't
           | really notice too much difference upon switching back.
           | They've really downsized their app a lot across all three
           | platforms.
        
         | polote wrote:
         | > These deals are just payouts for the hosts not investments
         | that make the shows better
         | 
         | Honestly I don't think Spotify bought podcasts to make money
         | from it, they just want people to associate the word "podcast"
         | with the app Spotify. And so far that works because no other
         | app gained significant momentum.
         | 
         | The fact that less people watch the show is almost irrelevant
        
         | handmodel wrote:
         | I think the model of giving away Joe Rogan to all users of
         | Spotify (even if not paying subscribers) is worst of all worlds
         | from a business POV.
         | 
         | Think how many people still subscribe and pay over ten dollars
         | a month to listen to Howard Stern. I subscribe to a few
         | podcasts on patreon at $5 just for the few bonus episodes. And
         | I have trouble believing the ad revenue Spotify gets for this
         | is anywhere close to what paying customers could be for them.
        
           | hellbannedguy wrote:
           | In Joe Rogan's case, I doubt people would pay.
           | 
           | Then again, I haven't been able to understand his success.
           | 
           | I cringe when he calls himself a Comedian.
           | 
           | I cringe when he talks science. (Always felt someone should
           | sit down with him and explain The Placebo Effect, and The
           | Scientific Method, and what goes into a good Clinical study.
           | I would be shocked if he ever even took Psy 101.)
           | 
           | Is it the upfront pot use that garners so many admirers?
           | 
           | He does know his MMA though.
           | 
           | I have enjoyed his interviews, but it's the guests I find
           | interesting.
        
           | hombre_fatal wrote:
           | Well, maybe it's more strategic than just short-term dollars
           | and cents.
           | 
           | For example, there must be a lot of value in training people
           | to use Spotify for podcasts at all, starting with the biggest
           | podcast in the world. As more people use Spotify for
           | podcasts, Spotify gets more and more power for future
           | exclusivity negotiations.
           | 
           | Spotify was certainly just a music app for me until I had to
           | start using it to listen to Joe Rogan, and it seems
           | reasonable that the Joe Rogan move was to create this
           | transition in Spotify users. They clearly don't just want to
           | be a music app.
        
       | INTPenis wrote:
       | The discussions about Rogans social responsibility are just
       | silly. He's an entertainer. People need to understand that.
       | 
       | But his influence dropping, I'm not at all surprised. I used to
       | follow him until he moved to Spotify. Now I only catch the
       | occasional clip on Youtube. And I've actually forced myself to
       | endure the awful spotify UI for some special episodes like Dave
       | Chappelle.
       | 
       | But otherwise I'd rather avoid that mess. It's truly awful.
       | 
       | I don't see how Spotify won anything, as some in this thread are
       | saying. Youtube still gives you maximum exposure, and for just a
       | little more than what Spotify charges you get essentially the
       | same music catalogue, AND youtube premium ad free. I can't deny
       | that's a good deal to me. I haven't watched TV since 2010,
       | Youtube has way too much content in truth.
        
       | dnissley wrote:
       | I have to say this seems utterly un-noteworthy. "Person whose
       | content was free now reaching a smaller audience now that their
       | content is behind a paywall".
        
       | glitchc wrote:
       | Good. Rogan spouts a great deal of rubbish on topics he knows
       | very little about. His interviews are good though, some of them.
       | 
       | Edit: Added "some of them"
        
       | fossuser wrote:
       | It's a mistake for someone with a massive audience and their own
       | platform to give that up.
       | 
       | There's a reason Spotify paid him one hundred million dollars (or
       | whatever it was) - he thought he was getting the better side of
       | that deal, but he was wrong.
       | 
       | What Spotify is doing is worse for users, but also worse for
       | content creators in the long run. Giving up control of your
       | distribution is a mistake.
        
       | jbverschoor wrote:
       | Joe who?
        
       | LAC-Tech wrote:
       | He's still a lot more influential than The Verge
        
       | danschumann wrote:
       | As a paying customer, I wonder what I'm paying for when I get a
       | 15 minute ad of Joe Rogan hard pitching me something.
        
       | lolsal wrote:
       | Who is Joe Rogen and why would I care?
        
       | throwaway4good wrote:
       | Joe Rogan would be losing influence regardless if he was confined
       | to Spotify, simply due to the competition. There is just so much
       | more podcasting done today than there was two years ago, when he
       | took the deal.
        
       | mhh__ wrote:
       | I have definitely enjoyed parts of his show a lot, but I
       | genuinely think him becoming less influential (which I don't
       | quite buy) is a good thing societally.
        
       | pandeiro wrote:
       | Not surprised this degenerated immediately into a mass ranting
       | session about pandemic science with pretty much the entire
       | catalog of cognitive biases and logical fallacies on display.
       | 
       | I guess that's interesting to some, from a sociological
       | standpoint, but for me, there's more than enough of this on
       | literally every other social media platform.
       | 
       | I'm interested in a discussion about the actual dynamic of
       | spotify vs youtube dissemination and whether the claims made in
       | the article are valid. Because the entire premise is backed by
       | the "secondary metric" of how many Twitter followers a guest's
       | account grew by -- this seems pretty ripe for confounding
       | variables, like the appeal of the guest, auxiliary appearances
       | elsewhere, the news cycle at the time overlapping with the
       | guest's subject matter, and other things.
       | 
       | Curious what others think of this.
        
         | Thorentis wrote:
         | Maybe it's the time of day, but HN is usually good at cutting
         | through the usual politicised stuff, and just discussing the
         | issue at hand.
         | 
         | At the end of the day, Spotify isn't a Podcasts platform, and
         | nobody I know associates Spotify with podcasts. Surely somebody
         | on Rogan's team knew this, but I suspect the money was simply
         | too good to pass up. Imagine starting a FinTech SaaS with the
         | sole purpose of being acquired, and then being offered $100m by
         | a Biotech company. I'd probably take it.
        
         | jessaustin wrote:
         | There is probably something to this analysis, particularly for
         | _new_ listeners. (Rogan might be big enough that new listeners
         | are less important?) Spotify has chosen not to use these other
         | platforms to the extent that it could use them. This is an
         | example (perhaps the canonical one?) of Ben Thompson 's
         | "strategy tax". For an individual podcast, it would be better
         | to have _something_ on all platforms /protocols/modalities.
         | They want to attract Youtube viewers as well as RSS subscribers
         | as well as everyone else. A capitalist firm like Spotify that
         | wants to make a little money every time anyone ever listens to
         | anything is comfortable losing a bit on every show it produces,
         | if it can convince investors that doing so could bring about
         | their favored apocalypse of rent-seeking. Each show is taxed to
         | benefit the firm's long-term strategy.
         | 
         | Spofity seems to have modeled its Rogan acquisition as a
         | platform crossover event. Lots of loyal Rogan listeners had
         | never installed a Spotify app, and now a certain percentage of
         | those people have. However, the way Spofity have structured
         | this, as a one-time thing in which Rogan no longer reaches
         | other platforms in comparable ways, seems to limit the
         | potential benefit of this maneuver.
         | 
         | The reason I no longer listen to Rogan's podcast is that it is
         | no longer an actual podcast. My players are still pointed at
         | his RSS feed, but that thing is dead. I have no interest in
         | using special apps published by Spotify to listen to something
         | that used to be available in the normal way. I realize that is
         | a fairly odd preference, but it satisfies the categorical
         | imperative. I'm not the only person who strongly prefers to
         | listen in a particular way. Spofity's strategy is different
         | from that of many patronage-supported podcasts, which publish
         | e.g. half of their episodes publicly, with ads encouraging
         | people who would like more episodes to send money. Those
         | podcasts are marketed in a more open way than Rogan's.
        
       | qwertyuiop_ wrote:
       | > _To do this, we pulled data from the analytics tool Social
       | Blade to track the Twitter following of every guest who went on
       | Rogan's podcast between December 2019 and July 2021. Guests
       | generally see a surge of new followers after appearing on the
       | show, with some gaining as many as 18,000 new followers in the
       | week following their chat, and that effect has grown over time as
       | The Joe Rogan Experience gained popularity._
       | 
       | This is based on post show Twitter following of the guests. What
       | if his loyal listeners are not into Twitter and are leaving.
        
         | comodore_ wrote:
         | on top of that they highlight repeat guests which makes no
         | sense. and the fact that they highlight them specifically is
         | very fishy.
        
       | xutopia wrote:
       | To be fair... his move to Spotify coincided with him spewing more
       | and more anti-vax and anti-mask drivel that I don't have any
       | interest in listening to.
        
         | timr wrote:
         | > his move to Spotify coincided with him spewing more and more
         | anti-vax and anti-mask drivel that I don't have any interest in
         | listening to
         | 
         | I listen to his show sometimes, and while I've heard him have
         | guests on from all sides of these issues, at no point have I
         | heard him be anything less than a thoughtful, critical
         | interviewer.
         | 
         | If that's "drivel", we need more drivel. I'll certainly take it
         | over everything I see on cable news, which is laser-focused on
         | advancing a particular narrative, and demonizing anything and
         | anyone who might deviate from that narrative.
        
           | valine wrote:
           | Giving a platform to crackpots isn't always dangerous, but in
           | the case of vaccines it's a public health concern. It's
           | definitely not a good idea to give legitimacy to antivaxers
           | during a pandemic when people dying. Save that conversation
           | for another time.
        
             | the_third_wave wrote:
             | Equating any criticism of the strategies pushed by the
             | medical establishment as "antivaxx" is just as
             | counterproductive as calling everything "racist" or
             | "transphobic" or "homophobic" or any of the other epithets
             | being bandied around by the new puritans. Words have
             | meanings, these meanings can change over time (language
             | evolves) but forcing them to change to fit a given
             | narrative leads to an unhealthy political and social
             | climate. It is what Orwell wrote about in "1984", what
             | Solzhenitsyn wrote about in "The First Circle", what
             | Bradbury wrote about in "Fahrenheit 451", none of which
             | were meant as user manuals for a healthy society.
        
             | timr wrote:
             | I am a free speech absolutist. The answer to speech you
             | don't like is more speech, not censorship.
        
               | suzzer99 wrote:
               | Yes, more speech is always the answer. Which is why the
               | unmoderated internet is a such a bastion of enlightened,
               | thoughtful discourse.
        
               | gjs278 wrote:
               | it is if you're not fragile
        
               | lghh wrote:
               | Say I'm an interviewer running a podcast about SaaS
               | startups. Which is more useful?
               | 
               | 1. I interview a handful of people who have differing
               | opinions on what it takes to lead a SaaS startup who have
               | all had successful exist, but have differing opinions on
               | key issues. Maybe throw in a few people who have
               | experience working in that type of environment, but maybe
               | not leading, if you want a little more variety.
               | 
               | 2. I interview someone who has led a successful exit like
               | in (1), but I also interview a full time commission
               | visual artist who has never worked at a SaaS startup. I
               | give both their ideas on how to run a SaaS startup equal
               | weight, even when the visual artist isn't making any
               | sense in the context of the conversation or is spewing
               | nonsense in the context of the conversation.
               | 
               | Joe does (2). They are both "free speech", but only one
               | is actually useful.
        
               | dexterdog wrote:
               | Number 1 is not very good because you're only taking to
               | people who had successful exits so you're already skewing
               | the conversation.
        
               | manigandham wrote:
               | When did "useful" become a metric for this podcast?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | Applejinx wrote:
               | I'm not... not anymore... after observing stuff like
               | this. Like Joe, like some of his guests, like the results
               | of how things have shaken out.
               | 
               | Notably, free speech absolutism is impossible to refute
               | if everyone is arguing in good faith. Since quite a few
               | influential political actors are demonstrably not, and
               | are following well-defined tactics dating back to various
               | fascist regimes such as those who produced WWII, it is
               | insane to pretend everyone is arguing in good faith.
               | 
               | And it is both instructive and dismaying to see that the
               | people most obviously arguing in bad faith have a
               | tendency to insist, and get others to insist, that free
               | speech must be absolute and that everyone must be taken
               | with the assumption that they're arguing in good faith.
               | 
               | Tactically, it makes perfect sense, but it's a hell of an
               | exploit.
        
               | timr wrote:
               | The bottom line is I don't trust you to decide what
               | should be censored. You don't trust me.
               | 
               | There is no workable censorship regime that does not
               | devolve into ideological warfare.
        
               | depaya wrote:
               | This has nothing to do with censorship. This person is
               | saying it is irresponsible for Rogan to entertain and
               | provide a platform for these things.
        
               | swayvil wrote:
               | And irresponsible people should be censored.
               | 
               | Lol.
        
               | Bud wrote:
               | Please don't spread confusion about what "free speech"
               | means. I'm sure you are not actually confused about this,
               | so please do not pretend to be.
               | 
               | Having some people not appear on a given podcast is not a
               | "free speech" issue. Choosing to not be a dangerous idiot
               | by having dangerous idiots on your show during a pandemic
               | is not "censorship" or anything remotely close to
               | censorship as it is commonly, and correctly, understood.
        
               | timr wrote:
               | > Please don't spread confusion about what "free speech"
               | means.
               | 
               | I'm not confused.
               | 
               | > Choosing to not be a dangerous idiot by having
               | dangerous idiots on your show during a pandemic is not
               | "censorship" or anything remotely close to censorship as
               | it is commonly, and correctly, understood.
               | 
               | When someone decides _for me_ that  "dangerous idiots"
               | should not have a voice -- for whatever justification --
               | I'm against them having the ability to act on that
               | impulse. The wonderful thing about free speech is that if
               | you don't like it, you're free not to listen to it.
               | 
               | Every censor has started from the premise that they're
               | doing good. I don't agree with your opinions, and I'm not
               | so feeble-minded as to be unable to decide for myself
               | what I see.
        
               | swayvil wrote:
               | And who picks the "dangerous idiots"? You? Your favorite
               | authority?
               | 
               | Ha ha.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | It _is_ censorship when the government leans on you to
               | not promulgate ideas the government decides are false.
        
               | likeclockwork wrote:
               | You're the only one bringing the Government into this.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | The government has been leaning on to social media
               | companies telling them to self-censor or the government
               | will do it for them.
        
               | likeclockwork wrote:
               | And none of that is what this discussion was ever about.
               | 
               | Conflating criticism with calls for government censorship
               | is a dishonest rhetorical tactic.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | djur wrote:
               | Speech such as "this guy is full of it, don't listen to
               | him"?
        
               | dexterdog wrote:
               | Which is fine to say as long as you are not making it so
               | people can't listen to him if they want it.
        
               | valine wrote:
               | I'm all for free speech in the sense that you have the
               | right to say what you want without retribution from the
               | government. Free speech doesn't mean you have the right
               | to an audience.
        
               | secondcoming wrote:
               | Looks like your comment is losing its right to an
               | audience
        
               | valine wrote:
               | You clearly read it so maybe not.
        
           | tshaddox wrote:
           | I don't think accusations of spewing anti-vax and anti-mask
           | drivel have anything to do with his interviewing skills.
           | They're certainly not mutually exclusive. The parent
           | commenter didn't make any accusations about his interviewing
           | skills.
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | How is calling men who wear masks "pussies" while disagreeing
           | with your guest about it being a thoughtful and critical
           | interviewer?
        
           | nabla9 wrote:
           | > I heard him be anything less than a thoughtful, critical
           | interviewer.
           | 
           | He is the least critical interviewer you can imagine. Being
           | uncritical and hyped up is his trademark. He is Mr. Softball
           | to the extent he is made of fun for it.
           | 
           | He is not thoughtful. He has talent of speaking endlessly and
           | keeping it going endlessly.
        
             | BitwiseFool wrote:
             | Sometimes the point of a talkshow is to get the guest to do
             | the majority of the talking. Other talk shows take the
             | opposite approach and the guest is just a vehicle to let
             | the host pontificate. Neither is superior.
        
           | kadoban wrote:
           | When you have extremists on and don't challenge what they're
           | saying, that _is_ pushing a narrative.
           | 
           | The whole "both sides" thing is the _worst_ of cable news and
           | why I signed off years ago. Does the Sun orbit the Earth?
           | Let's get a crazy person on and see. It's okay because we'll
           | give an expert a few minutes too.
        
             | throwawayboise wrote:
             | You see an equivalency between discussing new vaccine
             | technologies for a novel virus, and discussing whether the
             | Sun orbits the Earth?
        
               | titzer wrote:
               | Yeah, when they spout obviously false, easily-checkable
               | things like "it alters your DNA" that are clearly
               | intended to scare people.
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | From my frame of reference, the Sun indeed revolves around
             | the Earth.
             | 
             | Just like the chair you're sitting in is stationary
             | according to your frame of reference, while from another it
             | is hurtling through space.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | For the naysayers: have you ever said "The Sun rises in
               | the east?"?
               | 
               | I bet you have. From your frame of reference, the Sun
               | revolves around the Earth.
               | 
               | I also bet if I asked you "which direction should be a
               | rocket be launched into earth orbit to minimize fuel
               | consumption" you'll have to stop and think about it.
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | Not in any normal way; the geocentricists tried to build
               | mechanical models but the increasing number of epicycles
               | was a big clue that the system was in fact heliocentric.
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | I well understand the history of this topic, after all, I
               | have two years of Caltech physics :-) Nevertheless, as
               | Einstein demonstrated, things look very different
               | depending on the frame of reference.
               | 
               | There's no such thing as a "normal" frame of reference.
               | 
               | > the geocentricists tried to build mechanical models but
               | the increasing number of epicycles was a big clue that
               | the system was in fact heliocentric.
               | 
               | Not exactly, it was a big clue that the planets did not
               | move in perfect circles. The mechanical models did not
               | provide any evidence of heliocentrism. It was Galileo's
               | observations of Venus that torpedoed the geocentric
               | theory.
        
               | ithkuil wrote:
               | Does relativity apply also to rotating reference frames?
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | Of course.
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | Is which object orbits which actually relative to a
               | reference frame though? Does not seem like it should be.
               | 
               | The Sun has a certain mass, the Earth has a certain mass,
               | the center of the point of orbit of both (barycenter?
               | That seems to be the right term) is inside of the Sun no
               | matter what frame you hang out in. What am I missing?
        
               | WalterBright wrote:
               | You can set up whatever frame of reference works best for
               | a situation. We do it all the time. It's very convenient
               | for us earthers to use a geocentric framing of the
               | universe for our daily life, where the skies revolve
               | around the Earth. We do it every day.
               | 
               | Such as the word "sunrise" is very geocentric. We don't
               | even have a word for the heliocentric term for the same
               | thing. We also use geocentric phrases like "jets chasing
               | the Sun" and "sundials track the movement of the Sun",
               | etc.
        
               | brandmeyer wrote:
               | NIST Technical Note 1385 "GPS Receivers and Relativity"
               | by Ashby and Weiss discusses how to solve the GPS
               | positioning equations in a relativistically correct way.
               | It turns out that since the frame of reference (Earth-
               | Centered/Earth-Fixed) is rotating, it is non-inertial and
               | you have to apply some corrections to do the job right.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | Copernicus' heliocentric system actually had more
               | epicycles than contemporary Ptolemaic models.
        
             | manigandham wrote:
             | > _" both sides" thing is the _worst_ of cable news_
             | 
             | It used to be the best when there was regulation that made
             | sure equal amounts of attention were devoted to both sides
             | of an issue with proper research.
             | 
             | What we have today are ideological echo chambers with some
             | caricature of an opposing side, not actual debate.
        
             | lamontcg wrote:
             | Yeah, he was always that way and he was always a gateway
             | drug to the alt-right.
        
               | manigandham wrote:
               | He's had plenty of prominent leftist guests like Bernie
               | Sanders, and most of his comedian and artist friends are
               | left-leaning, and he leans left himself. How is this a
               | gateway to the alt-right? At some point these accusations
               | just become meaningless.
        
               | ajkjk wrote:
               | The claim isn't that he was a gateway to the alt-right
               | _by having only a certain kind of guest_, or anything
               | like that, so that's not really a counterargument.
        
               | lamontcg wrote:
               | Yeah, you can be so open-minded that every piece of
               | drivel just slides easily through your mind. That isn't
               | being well informed. You actually need good filters and
               | know what they're based upon.
               | 
               | Props to Bernie for taking the battle to the middle
               | ground though and not preaching only to the choir. He
               | kind of got shit on for that as well.
        
               | manigandham wrote:
               | I said him and his friends lean left too, so what else
               | makes it a gateway? These claims are always vague and
               | unfounded.
        
               | teknofobi wrote:
               | Joe Rogan leans left in the same way someone that starts
               | their sentences with "I'm not rasist, but ..." aren't
               | racists. It's just a rhetorical device to convince you
               | that they don't believe in labels, and then they
               | immediately use their actions and words to demonstrate
               | that they fit the textbook description of the label.
               | 
               | > They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to
               | challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is
               | their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly,
               | since he believes in words.
        
               | manigandham wrote:
               | It's the labels that are the problem, used by
               | unreasonable people to create even more division. Very
               | few people fit a single side on all issues.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | dexterdog wrote:
             | That's a hell of a lot better than what we get now which is
             | "we'll pick a single expert and nobody is allowed to
             | question him because we know that his truth is the right
             | truth."
        
             | beaner wrote:
             | Ok great, so you've picked a side and have your ears shut.
             | Don't act like everyone else should adopt that attitude.
        
               | hobs wrote:
               | Well, we haven't proven you're not an (insert horrible
               | slur here) so let's have an endless stream of guests
               | speculate on whether or not you are!
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _you 've picked a side and have your ears shut_
               | 
               | OP doesn't claim Rogan should be de-platofrmed. Just that
               | pushing batshit theories is an explanation for his
               | declining influence. I enjoy watching flat earthers from
               | time to time. But I'm not going to make it a part of my
               | information diet.
        
           | pengaru wrote:
           | No, he's become much more narrative/agenda/propaganda
           | propagating and conspiracy theory fueling in recent years.
           | 
           | I used to listen when there were an interesting guest just to
           | hear them talk at length about their profession/passions, but
           | it's no longer worth it if the cost is giving rogan a podium
           | for his self-proclaimed-moron-disclaimed pot-stirring
           | efforts.
        
           | lghh wrote:
           | But "both sides of an issue" is, in this situation, the right
           | side of an issue and the wrong side of an issue.
           | 
           | That's like saying he has guests on both sides of the flat
           | earth issue, except there are actual lives at stake.
        
             | WalterBright wrote:
             | The point of listening to "wrong" sides of an issue is to
             | see how well your "right" side stands up to scrutiny.
             | 
             | The history of science is full of obviously right things
             | that turned out be be wrong.
             | 
             | Even Einstein, who upended Newtonian Mechanics, rejected
             | Quantum Mechanics, since "God doesn't play dice with the
             | universe".
        
             | jessaustin wrote:
             | "Both sides" is often two wrong sides. The world is not
             | binary. Those who only listen to both sides might never
             | notice that.
        
         | klaudius wrote:
         | I suggest you read the book "Virus Mania" for a more skeptical
         | look on epidemics, masks and vaccines.
        
           | technothrasher wrote:
           | That book is as far from "skeptical" as you can get. Denying
           | the very existence of viruses is not skeptical, it's
           | credulity.
        
         | glonq wrote:
         | Yeah, that's about exactly when I stopped listening to him.
         | Listening to him talk shop with other comedians was always
         | entertaining. But "serious" Joe is a whackjob, yes-man, and
         | meat-head.
        
         | delaaxe wrote:
         | I got tired of the excessive gender pronoun politics bs
        
         | tyleo wrote:
         | This has been my experience as well. Another commenter
         | mentioned this but I also feel like guests have been less
         | interesting since the move to Austin. I used to be a daily
         | listener now I feel like it can be months between interesting
         | episodes.
        
           | asdff wrote:
           | Easier to find someone available to drive to a studio in LA
           | than to have them fly out of LAX to Austin.
        
         | edge17 wrote:
         | If anyone wants a datapoint, I stop listening to podcasts once
         | they go to Spotify. I use Overcast, and generally don't have
         | the wherewithal to chase content. I'm guessing there are more
         | like me. I was an infrequent listener to Joe Rogan, but now I
         | am not a listener at all (because it moved to Spotify).
         | 
         | Also, there seems to be a lot of judgement of the kind of
         | person Joe Rogan is (conspiracy, etc) in the comments. I have
         | never once listened to Joe Rogan to listen to Joe Rogan. The
         | fact of the matter is he gets fantastic guests doing long form
         | conversations. I only ever showed up for the guests. Generally
         | also the case for many other podcasts, Lex Friedman, Tim
         | Ferris, etc.... the value they bring is more the guests they
         | attract and the space they create for the guest.
         | 
         | I guess it would be interesting to deep fake the voice of the
         | host and see how many people actually cared about the host.
        
           | kybernetikos wrote:
           | > I guess it would be interesting to deep fake the voice of
           | the host and see how many people actually cared about the
           | host.
           | 
           | I wonder how good GPT would be at generating questions to a
           | guest based on their work and interests. Having a GPT driven
           | interviewer could be quite interesting as a gimmick.
        
           | rednerrus wrote:
           | Same
        
           | mavhc wrote:
           | There's 1000 sane hosts who have the same interesting guests
           | though, don't support the crazy people, we've seen where that
           | leads us
        
             | jessaustin wrote:
             | Name ten.
        
           | jseliger wrote:
           | I was also an idle subscriber: I'd start listening to perhaps
           | one in five episodes, with guests who interest me (think of
           | people like Elon Musk or Jonathan Haidt). When Rogan left
           | Apple podcasts/Stitcher, I stopped listening. Your statement
           | echoes how I feel: "I only ever showed up for the guests.
           | Generally also the case for many other podcasts, Lex
           | Friedman, Tim Ferris, etc.... the value they bring is more
           | the guests they attract and the space they create for the
           | guest."
        
           | dexterdog wrote:
           | I'm the same way. I used to listen to Stern on the radio for
           | my morning drive but never considered for a second going
           | satellite when he did. There were plenty of options.
        
           | personlurking wrote:
           | You basically explained my view and feelings on the matter. I
           | watched maybe 10 episodes per year on YT but once it went to
           | Spotify, I don't watch at all.
           | 
           | Coincidentally, around the same time he went to Spotify, I
           | started getting really annoyed at his butting in and his
           | opinions on matters that his guests know a lot more about.
           | I've caught a clip or two on YT in recent months and I skip
           | over any parts where the camera is on Joe, so I can just hear
           | the guest.
        
         | paxys wrote:
         | Exactly this. I used to be a fan of the podcast and have no
         | problem listening to it on Spotify. It just stopped being
         | interesting.
        
         | isoskeles wrote:
         | The discussion here is really distracting. Came to read
         | thoughts about Joe Rogan, and now it's just people arguing
         | about COVID-19.
        
           | patchorang wrote:
           | Sounds like an episode of joe Rogan.
        
         | ajuc wrote:
         | I like his choice of guests (high percentage of scientists and
         | interesting people, even if some of them are conspiracy
         | theorists) and that he mostly lets people talk. But I lost a
         | lot of respect for him after his recent MMA commentary. I've
         | never seen such biased commentary in any sport as his in
         | Adesanya vs Blachowicz. It was absurd.
        
         | fatcoward wrote:
         | > Look at me. I'm a fat coward who gets upset when people say I
         | should lose weight instead of wearing a mask and getting a
         | vaccine.
         | 
         | > Ooooh boy I can't wait to get my Fellas (YC 2021) pills so I
         | can lose all this fat off of my back. Teehee.
         | 
         | > Don't forget, we should also all eat soy/tofu and ban guns.
         | :) Guns are scary.
         | 
         | > I'm a fat faggot. :)
        
         | Graffur wrote:
         | I listen to him on Spotify and this is just incorrect. The use
         | of the word 'spew' indicates you might have an agenda.
        
           | xx511134bz wrote:
           | Drivel is also a giveaway. A social credit score is being
           | erected all around us, yet people complain about "conspiracy
           | theorists", unbelievable!
           | 
           | Australia is basically a prison now. Turn on "Show Dead" if
           | you want to see the good comments.
           | 
           | Doctor shows how the "COVID-19 vaccine" damages vital organs
           | in the body - see the shocking evidence
           | 
           | https://endtimes.video/doctor-covid19-vaccine-dangers/
        
           | yokoprime wrote:
           | I agree, it's more of a constant undercurrent
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | president wrote:
         | Calling people anti-vax and anti-mask when they clearly aren't
         | is no different from bullying. By the way, there are plenty of
         | scientists from top institutions like Stanford and even Nobel
         | Prize winners who have spoken against many of the mainstream
         | Covid narratives. Not sure how people like you with no medical
         | domain expertise and experience have the gall to question valid
         | concerns from respected doctors and scientists.
         | 
         | EDIT: Downvoted for pointing out smearing/bullying and dropping
         | factual information. @dang - is this what HN is about? This has
         | got to change.
        
         | jgeerts wrote:
         | It's hard to listen to recently, he's suggesting working out
         | and eating vitamins instead of a vaccine. He still has an
         | influence on people and he's spreading misinformation.
         | 
         | Rogan is against wearing masks but demands all of his guests to
         | be tested for COVID-19 before going on his show which is kind
         | of contradictory.
        
         | Fomite wrote:
         | It also coincided with me canceling my Spotify account.
        
         | sakopov wrote:
         | Yeah, to be fair, that never happened. What did happen is him
         | saying that if you're older you should stay home and if you're
         | younger you should be alright with masks, which at the time was
         | the same message that you'd hear in the media.
        
           | TaupeRanger wrote:
           | To be fair, you're just blatantly ignoring huge swaths of his
           | anti-vax diatribes.
           | 
           | He recently pointed to a 5 year old paper to suggest that
           | vaccinations are bad because they allow more virulent strains
           | to come about.
           | 
           | He previously suggested that if you're "young" you don't need
           | to be vaccinated, which of course his conspiratorial audience
           | ate up and absolutely adored, ignoring any evidence or
           | argument to the contrary.
        
             | sleavey wrote:
             | > He recently pointed to a 5 year old paper to suggest that
             | vaccinations are bad because they allow more virulent
             | strains to come about.
             | 
             | Papers from the 1900s are still our best description of
             | some physical phenomena. A paper's age, taken on its own,
             | has nothing to do with truth or untruth.
        
         | complianceowl wrote:
         | All of us are right and wrong to varying degrees. I don't think
         | Joe Rogan cares much for people that stop listening because he
         | doesn't reinforce their politics. He never has.
         | 
         | He's also spoken about the whole point of him having FU money
         | is that he is able to say whatever he wants and not care about
         | the blowback.
         | 
         | I'm not anti-vax, but ultimately, my body, my choice. People
         | who are risk averse are free to self-quarantine for any
         | duration they please. Us, the unvaccinated, are happy to live
         | freely and face any associated risks - just like people who
         | decide to ride motorcycles, play combat sports, or eat
         | homegrown food.
        
           | krastanov wrote:
           | There are plenty of situations in which we as a society have
           | decided that freedoms are curbed to protect the masses. Drunk
           | driving laws for instance. If you are putting people around
           | you at risk, it seems perfectly reasonable to me to require
           | you to stay home, not all the other people who have taken the
           | easy trivial precautions (vaccines and masks) necessary to
           | protect those around them.
        
             | swader999 wrote:
             | Covid vaccinations have only been proven to protect the
             | vaccinated from severe outcomes. They don't prevent
             | infection or re-transmission. There's no valid claim to
             | pushing this on those that don't want them.
        
               | krastanov wrote:
               | Of course I agree that those who do not want vaccines
               | should not be forced. But they also should not get to
               | ruin everything for the rest of us. The r coefficient for
               | vaccinated people is drastically lower leading to
               | protecting those that can not get vaccinated (whom, I
               | guess, unvaccinated people do not mind screwing over).
               | And vaccinated people are not taking away ICU beds from
               | people suffering from non-prevetable diseases.
        
               | swader999 wrote:
               | By your logic we should penalize obese people. It's more
               | of a factor in icu admission stats than vax status.
        
               | krastanov wrote:
               | This is nonsense. The causal feature of the people
               | saturating ICU capacities is that they are unvaccinated,
               | not obese. It also matters that getting vaccinated is a
               | cheap safe triviality, while getting into a healthy BMI
               | range is an expensive long process (but I would agree
               | that it should be encouraged).
        
               | bwship wrote:
               | Why is eating healthy and exercising expensive?
        
               | krastanov wrote:
               | Google "food deserts". Some people have 3 jobs and
               | depression: not much time for going to the gym and eating
               | healthy.
               | 
               | And do not be silly: healthy food is way more expensive
               | per callory.
        
               | thegrimmest wrote:
               | It's the calories that count for obesity, not the
               | "healthiness". It's perfectly possible to maintain a
               | healthy body weight eating chips and drinking soda. Time
               | isn't a factor here, personal responsibility is.
        
               | krastanov wrote:
               | Yes, I am on the same page that all you need is a bit of
               | discipline (and some baseline amount of crucial nutrients
               | not present in cheap calory sources). But we all have
               | about the same "discipline reserve", and some have harder
               | life circumstances that expend that reserve on more
               | urgent things than lunch. And this snowballs after it
               | happens once. But to be fair, I do not really know what
               | is the percentage of "well-off cushy fat people without a
               | modicum of health discipline" vs "money-poor and time-
               | poor stressed depressed fat people". I do suspect the
               | latter group is bigger, and just yapping about "personal
               | responsibility" kinda misses the point in that case.
        
               | lamontcg wrote:
               | They both reduce infections and reduce transmission.
               | 
               | The VE is reduced with delta, but its still nonzero (most
               | of the studies of what it really is are still incredibly
               | poor though, but nothing has show it to be below 50% VE
               | against infection).
               | 
               | The initial comparable viral load studies are also all
               | bad. All they did was compare Ct of RNA loads. We now
               | know that there is less infectious virus in vaccinated
               | individuals, and that Ct values themselves decline
               | faster, which indicates they're producing more viral
               | debris -- we expect studies of transmission to show that
               | they transmit less. Older studies from earlier this year
               | against Alpha found that 80% of vaccinated breakthrough
               | infections produced zero transmitted secondary infections
               | with the other 20% only infecting 1-3 other people.
               | 
               | That is sufficient enough impact on infection and
               | transmission to end the pandemic if everyone was
               | vaccinated.
               | 
               | Unfortunately, everyone, including many scientists are
               | panicking in the face of uncertainty over the delta
               | variant and assuming the absolute worst and spreading
               | worst-case messages which are portraying vaccines as not
               | being worthwhile, when they're still effective enough.
        
           | alpaca128 wrote:
           | > Us, the unvaccinated, are happy to live freely and face any
           | associated risks
           | 
           | So I assume you agree to not come running to the hospital
           | when you get infected, taking away beds for other patients
           | who shouldn't have to suffer because of your ignorance?
        
           | arcticfox wrote:
           | > Us, the unvaccinated, are happy to live freely and face any
           | associated risks - just like people who decide to ride
           | motorcycles, play combat sports, or eat homegrown food.
           | 
           | I think you've got the wrong analogies going there. You, the
           | unvaccinated, are principally putting yourselves at risk but
           | you are _also_ , and more importantly, putting others at
           | increased risk of transmission from yourself.
           | 
           | Adjusting your content for accuracy: you, the unvaccinated,
           | are not allowed by society to do anything you want. Just like
           | you cannot drive drunk, shoot firearms inside city limits,
           | urinate on the street, sell poop sandwiches as a food
           | product, etc.
        
             | gjs278 wrote:
             | wrong. vaccinated people carry the same viral load as
             | unvaccinated. that's why vaccinated have to wear masks.
        
           | edmundsauto wrote:
           | I think that's OK, as long as you accept the consequence of
           | being outcast from society - ie not allowed to interact or go
           | into a public place where you are a threat. "Not making other
           | people sick during a pandemic" is a pretty reasonable
           | prerequisite for social interaction.
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | The downvote button is a tool for crowdsourcing the (very
           | large) task of censorship.
           | 
           | Agree?
        
           | engineer_22 wrote:
           | ->ride motorcycles, combat sports, or eat homegrown food.
           | 
           | What an interesting choice of examples.... Can't help but
           | thinking one of these things is not like the others.
        
           | pertymcpert wrote:
           | Why aren't you vaccinated?
        
             | likeclockwork wrote:
             | Because he's anti-vax. This is the future where everyone
             | says they're not aligned with whatever idea then does
             | everything they can to promote and propagate that idea.
             | They'll even deny that the idea exists while spreading it
             | as far as they can.
        
         | yodsanklai wrote:
         | I think he's generally a good interviewer, and I like that he
         | invites people from all sides of the spectrum, if anything, it
         | helps me challenging my own ideas. Also, as a non-american, I
         | feel this is entertaining and give me a glimpse of American
         | culture.
         | 
         | That being said, I've lost interested mostly because his guests
         | have been less interesting (lately, mostly his comedian/fighter
         | friends).
         | 
         | BTW, anyone has good podcasts in the same vein to recommend?
        
           | upearly3 wrote:
           | You might check out Koncrete although there's not as much
           | content.
        
         | S_A_P wrote:
         | He's always been up and down that road. I don't agree with Joe
         | on a lot of things but I don't know that is his goal. If there
         | is one thing that I think Joe does reasonably well- its to have
         | you consider your stance and reasons for feeling that way. I
         | think it's healthy to reflect on why you take stances on things
         | like politics, culture and religion. Joe admits that he is "a
         | cage fighting commentator" and while I think he self labels
         | that way to sometimes get away with fringe viewpoints I do
         | think he genuinely is looking for the best ideas. He's
         | definitely not infallible and he gets on my nerves to the point
         | I stop listening for periods of time I do think that on balance
         | his hearts in the right place and he is much less apt to
         | blindly follow political doctrine a'la Fox News or CNBC.
        
           | paulcole wrote:
           | > Joe admits that he is "a cage fighting commentator" and
           | while I think he self labels that way to sometimes get away
           | with fringe viewpoints
           | 
           | This is the same way John Stewart and Stephen Colbert hid
           | behind, "I'm just a comedian." It's a great strategy if you
           | can pull it off.
        
             | aeturnum wrote:
             | I actually think Rogan's approach is exactly the opposite
             | of Stewart and Colbert (S&C). S&C would critique news
             | organizations for failing to provide counterpoints. They
             | would also earnestly advocate for their own views without
             | feeling the need to provide counterpoints. Their
             | justification was that they were entertainment - they
             | believed what they were saying and didn't feel like they
             | needed to properly inform on every element.
             | 
             | Rogan feels like he wants it both ways. He wants to pick
             | the people for his show and get credit when he picks well,
             | but if people dislike one of his picks he would suddenly
             | like to be seen as 'mixing it up' or a "cage fight
             | commentator." He won't really own a view (or the idea of
             | wanting to expose people to particular thinkers), but he
             | would rather bring people on in a way where he's seen as
             | minimally responsible for the uncomfortable content he
             | produces.
        
               | amznthrwaway wrote:
               | Joe holds and promotes many extreme beliefs but wants
               | plausible deniability.
               | 
               | The format he uses lets him do this, empowering
               | everything from Ivermectin promoters to white
               | nationalists, while allowing him to feign that he's not
               | doing that
        
             | tinco wrote:
             | You can pull it off if you've got integrity. John Stewart
             | surely has plenty of integrity in my eyes. Joe's definitely
             | also going for integrity, but maybe he's also liable to be
             | pulled into the views of his guests. He certainly keeps an
             | open mind, but if you surround yourself with a certain kind
             | of people at some point you'll develop a bias no matter how
             | open you're trying to be.
             | 
             | What's scarier are the persons who for the law are
             | considered entertainment, but conduct themselves on Fox as
             | if they're real journalists, and lie and deceive with
             | impunity. If Joe Rogan could disrupt the right media with
             | that, the same way John and maybe Stephen did on the left
             | side, the world would be a better place for sure.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | There is no real legal distinction between entertainers
               | and journalists. The separation of news and editorial
               | content is purely a matter of ethics and not law.
               | Journalists don't have any special statutory privileges.
        
               | macintux wrote:
               | > Journalists don't have any special statutory
               | privileges.
               | 
               | I'd say a special mention in the first amendment is
               | notable.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Nope. US courts have consistently held that the first
               | amendment applies equally to everyone regardless of
               | occupation. There is no special legal test to determine
               | if someone is a member of the press. There are centuries
               | of case law on this issue.
        
               | macintux wrote:
               | Journalists have (some) protection against being forced
               | to testify about sources. I guess it becomes a
               | philosophical question at that point whether being a
               | journalist is an occupation or an action.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Wrong again. At the federal level, journalists have no
               | such protection.
               | 
               | https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/journalists_pri
               | vil...
        
               | macintux wrote:
               | That article says 30 states have such laws, however, and
               | another source indicated 49 states (plus DC).
        
           | suzzer99 wrote:
           | For a long time he thought the moon landing was fake. That's
           | not a position you arrive at with reasoned science and
           | understanding how the world works. He's stated he thinks
           | Bigfoot could be real. He does the same thing on a myriad of
           | other topics. He presents some random quack as just as valid
           | as real science.
           | 
           | If he was just some random dude none of this would matter.
           | But with 11 million followers, sometimes this "my youtube
           | research is just as valid as your scientific research"
           | attitude can do real harm, as it did with vaccines.
        
             | manigandham wrote:
             | He's quite literally the "average Joe" (at least when he
             | started). The reason he no longer thinks the moon landing
             | is fake is because of reasoned science and understanding
             | which he learned through the course of the show by talking
             | to guests like Neil deGrasse Tyson.
        
               | likeclockwork wrote:
               | If you invite me for dinner at your house and I spend 4
               | hours forcing you to convince me the Earth is round, even
               | if I emerge with changed views, are we really going to be
               | good friends after that?
        
               | manigandham wrote:
               | That's up to you whether you can be friends with people
               | who change your mind. I don't see why that's so hard but
               | Rogan's changed opinion should be seen as a success story
               | about learning.
        
             | bwship wrote:
             | What does understanding about how the world works have to
             | do with the validity of a moon landing?
        
           | toofy wrote:
           | > I do think he genuinely is looking for the best ideas.
           | 
           | I lean more towards he's looking for affirmation to be
           | contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian.
           | 
           | If he was looking for the best ideas, he would of had a
           | completely different set of guests.
        
             | S_A_P wrote:
             | I suppose that is possible, but I dont really find him
             | overly contrarian and a lot of his views are relatively
             | centrist to slight libertarian. I will say I think he looks
             | for folks that he jives with more than most qualified for
             | the subject. But really Im not here to defend Joe and
             | honestly have not found a lot of compelling guests of late
             | on his show. I just dont think he is as bad as he is
             | sometimes made out to be.
        
               | amznthrwaway wrote:
               | I think his defenders are mostly people like you; people
               | who are fundamentally dishonest assholes.
               | 
               | They like Joe because he is also a fundamentally
               | dishonest asshole.
               | 
               | As evidence, you say you are not here to defend Joe, but
               | you wrote multiple posts defending Joe. You're a
               | dishonest little asshole. Just like Joe.
        
         | rapind wrote:
         | He was always into the conspiracy stuff, and it was usually
         | pretty light and interesting. The tone and guests definitely
         | changed around the time he moved to Austin (no knock on Austin,
         | I love that place). Politics and stuff I guess.
         | 
         | I lost interest too.
        
         | Clubber wrote:
         | I don't think that's accurate. Do you have some links or
         | anything to back that up? Like actual transcripts, not some
         | media interpretation.
         | 
         | "People say, do you think it's safe to get vaccinated? I've
         | said, yeah, I think for the most part it's safe to get
         | vaccinated. I do. I do," Rogan said on the podcast. "But if
         | you're like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get
         | vaccinated? I'll go no. Are you healthy? Are you a healthy
         | person?"
         | 
         | "If you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the
         | time, and you're young, and you're eating well," Rogan
         | continued, "like, I don't think you need to worry about this."
         | 
         | If this is what you are referring to, is that really anti-vax?
        
           | kelnos wrote:
           | I don't know anything about what Rogan has said about
           | vaccinations (I'm not the parent you're replying to), but I
           | still think this is a very disappointing, dangerously
           | misinformed take on his part. He's flat-out wrong; if you're
           | 21, generally healthy, exercising, etc., you absolutely
           | should get the vaccine. Also note that at first glance what
           | he says _sounds_ reasonable. He 's not the frothing-at-the-
           | mouth anti-vaxxer spouting garbage about vaccines containing
           | tracking chips, or part of the idiot crowd decrying
           | vaccination as somehow an affront to their liberty. He's
           | saying something reasoned, in a presumably calm manner, and
           | that will push even reasonable people believe it, even though
           | he is completely wrong.
           | 
           | These takes encourage people to only think about themselves.
           | Even if a young, generally healthy (unvaccinated) person is
           | unlikely to get sick (or worse), they could still very easily
           | end up an asymptomatic carrier, and give it to someone who
           | isn't in such great shape. Beyond that, an unvaccinated host
           | is also a great place for the virus to mutate and spread,
           | prolonging the pandemic for everyone.
           | 
           |  _Everyone_ who is eligible and medically able needs to get
           | vaccinated. I 'm getting super tired of all this garbage; the
           | US has had the vaccine supply and capability to be out of the
           | pandemic by now, but the unvaccinated are screwing over the
           | rest of us who are doing the right thing.
        
             | upearly3 wrote:
             | Part 1: >I don't know anything about what Rogan has said
             | about vaccinations.
             | 
             | Part 2: > I still think this is a very disappointing,
             | dangerously misinformed take on his part
             | 
             | lol. "I don't know what he said, but I disagree with it"
        
               | Clubber wrote:
               | In all fairness, I quoted a transcript that I assumed he
               | was responding to.
        
             | clipradiowallet wrote:
             | > Everyone who is eligible and medically able needs to get
             | vaccinated. I'm getting super tired of all this garbage;
             | the US has had the vaccine supply and capability to be out
             | of the pandemic by now
             | 
             | That's a rather polarized position... what facts or
             | experienced led you to this conclusion you stated?
             | Specifically _" the unvaccinated are screwing over the rest
             | of us who are doing the right thing"_.
        
               | andrewzah wrote:
               | "Specifically "the unvaccinated are screwing over the
               | rest of us who are doing the right thing"."
               | 
               | They're disproportionately taking up resources in
               | hospitals for example, which do not have unlimited
               | resources. We could be having a much better response
               | right now [here in the U.S.] with less load on hospitals,
               | but we're not, because of selfish and/or gullible people.
               | 
               | They're also making the pandemic & related economic
               | measures last longer than necessary. I can't wait for the
               | next shutdown(s) as more variants evolve then spread and
               | hospitals become even more inundated. Meanwhile I look at
               | places like South Korea which have had life continue
               | relatively normal because people actually wear masks
               | there instead of politicizing them.
        
               | kaibee wrote:
               | > That's a rather polarized position... what facts or
               | experienced led you to this conclusion you stated?
               | Specifically "the unvaccinated are screwing over the rest
               | of us who are doing the right thing".
               | 
               | The fact that the unvaccinated are taking up all of the
               | hospital beds in certain areas of the country..?
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | sleavey wrote:
             | > the unvaccinated are screwing over the rest of us who are
             | doing the right thing.
             | 
             | I'm curious as to what evidence you base that assertion on.
             | Respectfully, can you explain your position there?
        
             | timr wrote:
             | > He's flat-out wrong; if you're 21, generally healthy,
             | exercising, etc., you absolutely should get the vaccine.
             | 
             | While I generally agree with you, this is an _opinion_ ,
             | not an unquestionable fact. Especially as we're seeing
             | elevated risk of myocarditis in young men, there's
             | absolutely a legitimate debate here.
             | 
             | I don't necessarily think Rogan is the one advancing that
             | debate, but presenting opinions as facts is not helping
             | anyone.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | Of course that's anti-vax.
           | 
           | The main purpose of getting the vaccine isn't just to protect
           | _yourself_ -- it 's to reduce the chances of you transmitting
           | it to _others_. It 's about herd immunity, not personal
           | immunity. Whether you're young and healthy is irrelevant.
        
             | ostenning wrote:
             | Herd immunity is not possible with our current vaccines[1],
             | which means that coronavirus will continue to propagate
             | through society whether you decide to get vaccinated or
             | not.
             | 
             | You can make the argument that getting vaccinated reduces
             | the risk of you being hospitalized, which keeps a bed and a
             | nurse available for someone else. Thats a much more valid
             | argument to make.
             | 
             | [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00728-2
             | 
             | Edit: for those downvoting me, I've added a reference for
             | more information
        
               | TigeriusKirk wrote:
               | >Herd immunity is not possible with our current vaccines,
               | which means that coronavirus will continue to propagate
               | through society
               | 
               | This is my understanding as well, which was why I decided
               | to get vaccinated. If avoiding infection is impossible in
               | the long run, I should help my immune system prepare for
               | it.
               | 
               | I wonder how differently things would be going if the
               | campaign was "Covid is here to stay. You _will_ get it.
               | Get vaccinated. "
               | 
               | Maybe it would help, maybe not.
        
               | Clubber wrote:
               | >I wonder how differently things would be going if the
               | campaign was "Covid is here to stay. You will get it. Get
               | vaccinated."
               | 
               | I actually heard someone say that today, but I don't
               | remember where. Maybe Breaking Points, but not sure.
               | 
               | I was certainly rattled when I saw amateur video of
               | hospital workers stacking bodies in a freezer truck in
               | NYC. They should do more like that. As morbid as it is,
               | it gets the point across.
               | 
               | https://nypost.com/2020/03/30/disturbing-footage-shows-
               | dead-...
               | 
               | This wasn't the one I saw but you get the idea.
        
             | rkk3 wrote:
             | > The main purpose of getting the vaccine isn't just to
             | protect yourself -- it's to reduce the chances of you
             | transmitting it to others. It's about herd immunity, not
             | personal immunity.
             | 
             | Not about personal immunity? Why did we roll it out by age
             | group then?
        
           | ta2987 wrote:
           | Yes.
        
           | JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote:
           | > should I get vaccinated? I'll go no.
           | 
           | Yes that's anti-vax. We get vaccinated not just to protect
           | ourselves from death, but also to protect those around us by
           | reducing the transmission of disease.
        
             | rkk3 wrote:
             | Acknowledging that vaccines have some risk & at a certain
             | risk reward trade-off you would not take the vaccine is not
             | anti-vax.
        
             | fatcoward wrote:
             | WHY AREN'T THOSE PEOPLE VACCINATED TOO YOU STUPID FUCK?
        
             | I_cape_runts wrote:
             | False. The vaccinated can and do transmit the disease.
             | Vaccination only protects you. It doesn't protect others
             | around you.
        
               | JxLS-cpgbe0 wrote:
               | It reduces the chance of transmission. That's how it
               | protects others...
               | 
               | > Vaccination only protects you
               | 
               | False. Vaccinated people can still get sick, and
               | vaccination reduces the spread of disease, protecting
               | people that aren't you.
               | 
               | http://cdc.org/
        
               | makomk wrote:
               | Except that all the existing evidence suggests your
               | argument is backwards. Whilst Covid-19 vaccination
               | doesn't provide full protection for either the vaccinated
               | or those around them, it seems to be much more effective
               | at protecting the person being vaccinated against severe
               | symptoms, hospitalization and death than it does at
               | stopping them catching and spreading the virus to others.
               | As far as I can tell, literally the _only_ reason
               | vaccination is primarily framed as a way of protecting
               | others is because that framing fits better into left-wing
               | politics; it has nothing to do with the actual evidence.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | It's more nuanced than that. Prior to the delta variant,
               | there was strong evidence that the vaccines also
               | prevented you from being a carrier of the virus in most
               | cases.
               | 
               | The calculus with delta is different, as it does seem
               | that vaccinated people can spread delta. But the severity
               | of that spread, as well as the amount of time a
               | vaccinated person can spread it, is certainly lower than
               | that of an unvaccinated person.
        
           | reanimus wrote:
           | Yeah, it is! People thinking they don't need the vaccine are
           | contracting COVID and acting like human petri dishes for new
           | variants to arise from. It's also ignoring the reality of
           | COVID aftereffects (like parosmia) that affect young people
           | who recover too.
        
             | clipradiowallet wrote:
             | How do you come to that conclusion? Specifically your
             | conflusion that Joe Rogan is "anti-vax" from your sample of
             | him replying "I'll go no". If that's all it takes for you
             | to label someone, is someone saying "I'll go no" to a
             | homosexual encounter also anti-gay? Is someone who doesn't
             | agree with their governments policy anti-government? Might
             | want to relax a bit...I hear opinions are like certain body
             | parts. We've all got them, including Joe Rogan, and getting
             | up in arms about it doesn't help you or anyone else.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | beezischillin wrote:
       | I stopped watching purely due to the Spotify deal. I was willing
       | to give it a try until I saw that they were memoryholing
       | episodes. I might be in the minority here but it felt like a
       | betrayal. If he wanted more money he could've invested in his own
       | platform like many others and people would've followed. There's
       | plenty of other content in the sea.
        
         | mr_sturd wrote:
         | Some old episodes can be found at
         | https://archive.org/details/jre-001-837
        
         | bostonsre wrote:
         | memoryholing episodes == ?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | Spotify didn't bring over the old episodes with people like
           | Alex Jones, Gavin McInnes, and Milo Yiannopoulos.
           | 
           | > "There were a few episodes they didn't want on their
           | platform," Rogan said, per DMN. "And I was like, 'OK, I don't
           | care.'" https://www.thewrap.com/spotify-deletes-joe-rogan-
           | podcast-ep...
        
             | duxup wrote:
             | Kinda curious, do fans .. .care about that?
             | 
             | I guess some do but I don't think I ever listen to past
             | podcasts that I've already listened to...
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | I'm not particularly a "fan", but I do enjoy listening to
               | some JRE episodes when he has interesting guests like
               | Andrew Huberman. I don't care about losing access to old
               | podcasts any more than I care about Netflix pulling
               | certain movies. That's just the reality of all streaming
               | services. Content gets removed all the time for all sorts
               | of reasons. If you want to maintain access to something
               | then you'll have to make a local copy on hardware you
               | own.
        
               | pelasaco wrote:
               | I for example like to hear everything from the beginning
               | of the pandemics.. it is quite interesting to see now how
               | wrong/right the experts were.
        
               | literallyaduck wrote:
               | They don't burn books, they just remove them. Those
               | episodes happened, and removing them is a form of
               | gaslighting. If they find the content objectionable then
               | putting a disclaimer, if it is objectionable enough then
               | removing the entire series from the platform could be an
               | option, but it is lost history. In this case the artist
               | doesn't care, and probably is happy to sweep those
               | episodes under the rug. It is like how Disney wishes they
               | hadn't made "Song of the South".
        
               | duxup wrote:
               | Aren't they still available on YouTube / elsewhere?
        
               | bostonsre wrote:
               | All of the old ones are on youtube anyways, so I would
               | guess not. e.g. an alex jones one:
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVso9FSkmE
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | If you're recommending someone should listen to a
               | previous episode you might be interested that it is
               | avaialable or not.
        
               | ceejayoz wrote:
               | > Kinda curious, do fans .. .care about that?
               | 
               | Beyond bad faith concern trolling, I suspect not.
        
             | kristjank wrote:
             | Shame. Not to condone these people, but since getting along
             | with everyone was Joe Rogan's thing, I think they should've
             | embraced it. But Joe was most likely not glad to preserve
             | that part of his career either, otherwise I assume he would
             | protest.
        
               | kbenson wrote:
               | $100 million is a lot of incentive to not protest. The
               | line between actually important and kinda important gets
               | really well defined when you throw that much money on the
               | table.
        
           | chaoticmass wrote:
           | Removing certain old episodes from the catalogue (as if they
           | never existed, so they become forgotten)
        
           | correct_horse wrote:
           | Memory hole is from 1984. It is where they put papers to be
           | incinerated and forgotten. Spotify removed a few Joe Rogan
           | episodes IIRC.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | TakerofVita wrote:
           | I'm guessing this:
           | 
           | > A memory hole is any mechanism for the deliberate
           | alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing
           | documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as
           | from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an
           | attempt to give the impression that something never happened.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole
        
           | blendergeek wrote:
           | I believe GP is refering to the fact that Spotify has removed
           | episodes from Joe Rogan's back catalog that have been deemed
           | controversial [0].
           | 
           | [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-rogan-experience-
           | podcast...
        
         | megablast wrote:
         | > memoryholing
         | 
         | Who talks like this??
        
         | bb123 wrote:
         | What does memoryholing mean?
        
           | indy wrote:
           | Some episodes are no longer available, as if Spotify wants
           | everyone to forget that they even exist. Episodes featuring
           | Milo Yiannopoulos, Alex Jones etc. In other words, guests
           | that offend the progressive attitudes of Silicon Valley
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | jimt1234 wrote:
             | Rejecting people that promote the "Sandy Hook was fake!"
             | conspiracy theory and even harassing the parents of
             | murdered children isn't a way to avoid offending the
             | "progressive attitudes of Silicon Valley". It's just common
             | decency. ... Can we at least set the bar at that level --
             | that we _don't_ harass the parents of murdered children for
             | clicks?
        
               | secondcoming wrote:
               | Rogan called Jones out on that in one episode.
        
               | ErikVandeWater wrote:
               | Interviewing influential figures is important.
        
               | pjc50 wrote:
               | Interviewing libelous crackpots _gives_ them influence.
               | Without interviews, they 're seldom influential.
        
               | ErikVandeWater wrote:
               | I'm pretty sure Alex Jones has a big platform for
               | himself.
        
             | russdpale wrote:
             | Yeh LOL sandy hook denial is for progressive silicon Valley
             | types who aren't progressive. Maybe Spotify doesn't want to
             | be the 'dive bar' of web platforms.
             | 
             | If you aren't offended by Alex Jones you got deeper issues,
             | or perhaps are just ignorant to his white nationalist
             | messaging.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Milolol wrote:
             | Milo Yiannopoulos is a self-proclaimed white supremacist,
             | that offends more than "the progressive attitudes of
             | Silicon Valley," it offends everyone that's not a white
             | supremacist.
             | 
             | Alex Jones testified to being a performance artist and
             | hosts a talk show purely to hawk merchandise. Does that
             | really fit the mold of a thought-provoking podcast like
             | Rogan's?
        
               | LegitShady wrote:
               | >Milo Yiannopoulos is a self-proclaimed white supremacist
               | 
               | Pretty sure he said that while married to a black dude,
               | so unless you can come up with something specific I think
               | its comedy/trolling.
        
               | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
               | He's not white supremacists. He openly says he prefers
               | black men and has on several podcasts. He's just not a
               | typical gay man so he gets villified.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | Covzire wrote:
               | What happened? Liberalism used to have a solid footing on
               | the essentials of the constitution. If your enemies or
               | people you don't like don't have rights, you don't
               | either. The ACLU used to understand this probably better
               | than most organizations and today, like much of CA and
               | NY, they're lost.
        
               | I_cape_runts wrote:
               | I'm hesitant to delete something from public consumption
               | just because it's offensive or not liked.
        
               | meowface wrote:
               | >Milo Yiannopoulos is a self-proclaimed white supremacist
               | 
               | I think Milo is a scumbag, personally, but where did he
               | self-proclaim that he's a white supremacist?
               | 
               | >Alex Jones testified to being a performance artist
               | 
               | No, he didn't. His lawyer attempted to argue that he was
               | during a lawsuit, as a defense against full culpability
               | for his actions. Lawyers (understandably) try to pull out
               | everything they can to help their client. There's no
               | evidence Jones himself has ever said this or thinks this.
               | 
               | Although most of his non-watchers seem to think he's just
               | a con artist, after watching a cumulative dozens of hours
               | of him on camera over the years, I'm convinced it's not
               | an act and that he genuinely believes pretty much
               | everything he's saying (except for cases where he's
               | attempting to do a comedy bit). Unfortunately, a lot of
               | people in the US believe all of the things he believes -
               | and not necessarily because they're hearing it from him.
               | They all drink from the same watering holes. In my
               | opinion, this is why it's actually a lot more frightening
               | than con artistry or performance art.
        
               | foldr wrote:
               | These people are too smart to literally say "yes I am
               | [the bad thing]", but Milo is not exactly subtle about
               | where his sympathies lie: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ar
               | ticle/josephbernstein/heres-h...
        
               | cxf12 wrote:
               | To be fair, Milo was pretty thought provoking.
        
               | kelnos wrote:
               | I would be thrilled if both of those people simply ceased
               | to exist, but I think it's dishonest to delete and
               | "forget" old episodes of a show because you later decide
               | that the guests on those episodes were terrible people.
               | 
               | (I don't consider it material that presumably Spotify
               | required deleting them as part of the deal. Rogan agreed
               | to those terms, so clearly the money was more important
               | to him.)
        
               | effingwewt wrote:
               | Right, so don't listen to those episodes. I, on the other
               | hand, like hearing both sides so I can make an informed
               | decision on _why_ I disagree with whomever.
               | 
               | 'So and so is bad, I heard it from X' has never been good
               | for any human society.
               | 
               | Pretending the episodes don't exist is rewriting history.
               | 
               | 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to
               | repeat it.'
               | 
               | Personal point- if I saw Alex Jones personally I would
               | not want to be him. He has, for his own enrichment,
               | destroyed personal relationships, caused me endless
               | arguments with friends/family and is a walking detrament
               | to society. I hate with a passion the garbage he spews to
               | sell some garbage fake pills. But I still believe he has
               | a right to be heard.
               | 
               | We need to educate people not shelter them.
        
               | Mountain_Skies wrote:
               | It wasn't just those two people. https://www.reddit.com/r
               | /JoeRogan/comments/ikf9at/full_list_...
               | 
               | Also how do you know that either of those people are what
               | others have told you they are? If you're unable to listen
               | to them because they've been depersoned everywhere, you
               | have no way of knowing if they're truly as represented or
               | have been character assassinated. I'm not trying to
               | convince you that either of them aren't who you think
               | they are (from what I've seen, you're not far off) but
               | rather have you see that you could be wrong about them
               | (or others in the future) if you are not allowed to hear
               | them first hand and only get views of them filtered
               | through others.
        
               | pugets wrote:
               | On episode #1682 he talks about both figures. He was
               | saying he does feel a responsibility to vet his guests so
               | that he doesn't just have crazies using his platform to
               | spew vile, but ultimately that neither figure harms
               | anyone just by being a guest on a podcast. He talked
               | about how even if you hate Alex or Milo, you can still
               | gain something from listening to them speak. Maybe you
               | can figure out why you hate them, or maybe listening to
               | them directly will make you understand them in a
               | different light.
               | 
               | Maybe this is a 1990s George Carlin thing to say, but so
               | what if Milo offends people? Should we only be allowed to
               | hear things that don't offend us?
        
           | blackshaw wrote:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole
        
           | pcstl wrote:
           | Deleting something produced in the past such that it cannot
           | be found anymore.
        
           | kristjank wrote:
           | Wiping and unacknowledging something's past existence. Think
           | unpersons in 1984.
        
         | blahblahblogger wrote:
         | I didn't like them banning episodes too. There were internal
         | movements from Spotify employees (liberal Silicon Valley
         | workers) who wanted episodes completely censored and removed.
         | Joe talked about it a few times and I read some articles.
         | 
         | The irony is that by moving to these liberal employees'
         | platform, he's losing influence :)
         | 
         | By creating a crappy podcast platform they've ensured they get
         | what they want and he ends up diminished.
        
       | arodgers_la wrote:
       | Comedian Bill Burr said it best: "I'm not gonna sit here with no
       | medical degree, listening to you with no medical degree, with an
       | American flag behind you smoking a cigar acting like we know
       | what's up better than the CDC." [0]
       | 
       | That quote is Joe Rogan's shtick in a nutshell.
       | 
       | [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=tSKVXl-WnrA&t=5m20s
        
         | atlgator wrote:
         | The shtick is not limited to covid matters either. Most of his
         | non-MMA takes start with him not saying he's an expert followed
         | by a very naive and unnuanced summation of a problem. Lex
         | Fridman does the same thing for non-robotics/AI issues.
        
         | supperburg wrote:
         | Says people who don't watch joe rogan. Joe rogan has two kinds
         | of guests: experts/scientists and show biz people. The former
         | are why I watch the podcast. And I think it's important because
         | it gives a platform to people are being ignored by the
         | mainstream. Take for example Paul Saladino. Watch that podcast
         | and tell me it's pseudo science. You can't because he's
         | meticulously citing a paper and bringing up that paper to the
         | screen practically every five minutes. And he's an MD. And he's
         | been proven right by CAC score. And he's planning an angiogram
         | which if it comes out clean will be incontrovertible... he was
         | right. It annoys me that people want to shut down joe rogan for
         | harmless speculation he makes. If you think of Galileo and his
         | conflict with the church, he's very much like a joe rogan
         | guest. Has a controversial but correct scientific insight,
         | clashes with authority and the old dogma. There's definitely
         | been a handful of people like that. The MAPS guy comes to mind.
         | His vindication was massive and joe rogans contribution to that
         | was probably not insignificant.
        
           | landonxjames wrote:
           | I came across a very thorough analysis of the Paul Saladino
           | episode [0] the other day when I was researching him after a
           | friend recommended his book. Seemed like he was cherry
           | picking evidence pretty hard and that the majority of the
           | evidence doesn't agree with his stance at all
           | 
           | [0] https://www.biolayne.com/articles/research/paul-saladino-
           | on-...
        
             | supperburg wrote:
             | I will read the full thing later but I find it hard to
             | believe when you see this
             | 
             | "Moreover, the current western lifestyle is characterized
             | by high fat intake"
             | 
             | Which is stated as fact when it's not even true. Fat has
             | been stripped out of everything. Even milk has the fat
             | taken out of it. Look anywhere and you will see "fat free"
             | 
             | And while I agree that a lot of what saladino says doesn't
             | have enough evidence to be totally sure, what everyone
             | always ignores is when saladino points out that there isn't
             | enough evidence to be sure of the lipid hypothesis of heart
             | disease. There has never been a randomized, interventional
             | study that proves anything anyone says about meat, fat,
             | heart disease and health. Not one proper study. Meanwhile,
             | him and other people have zero CAC on a diet that should
             | have _killed_ him according to the current model. And there
             | are many other people who have done this. I can't dig into
             | the "debunk" right now but that's the value I take out of
             | saladino
        
               | PragmaticPulp wrote:
               | > And while I agree that a lot of what saladino says
               | doesn't have enough evidence to be totally sure, what
               | everyone always ignores is when saladino points out that
               | there isn't enough evidence to be sure of the lipid
               | hypothesis of heart disease.
               | 
               | This is a common, but lazy, trope trotted out by people
               | like Saladino. It's the same "It's just a theory"
               | argument that climate change deniers use.
               | 
               | There is a lot of evidence showing that things like
               | elevated LDL cholesterol has a cumulative (area under the
               | curve) negative effect on heart health, and that
               | saturated fat consumption is directionally negative for
               | heart health. You'd be hard pressed to find an actual
               | cardiologist or researcher who believes these things
               | aren't true. So why do you choose to believe a known
               | salesman with a conflict of interest in promoting his
               | expensive supplements and books on the topic?
               | 
               | You seem to be assuming a specific conclusion is true and
               | cherry-picking the single person who wants to sell that
               | conclusion to you. There are plenty of citations to the
               | contrary, many of which are in the article linked above.
        
               | supperburg wrote:
               | These are extremely valid points. Even Shawn baker
               | doesn't like the fact that Paul directly profits from
               | promoting carnivore.
               | 
               | It's funny you say there's a lot of evidence showing LDL
               | is bad etc, ok then show me the randomized interventional
               | study regarding animal fat. Regarding carnivore. You
               | can't and so whenever you say "there's lots of evidence"
               | you also have to say "but it's still unproven." And yes,
               | there is a difference between me and people who deny
               | gravity or global warming because in my case, the study
               | is absolutely trivial to perform! But it never happens
               | because the academic community refuses to put people in
               | (hypothetical!) danger by feeding them animal fat. It
               | would be immoral and most importantly very unfashionable
               | to perform a study like that.
               | 
               | Here's the rub: nobody I know or have seen has
               | experienced a decline in their health from carnivore.
               | There's no hard evidence that it's bad for you. That guy
               | from the grateful dead did it for 40 years and never had
               | a heart problem. I want a randomized controlled and
               | interventional study that simply shows us what difference
               | it makes to be carnivore rather than something else. I
               | will happily shut up forever if we did that and I was
               | wrong.
        
               | PragmaticPulp wrote:
               | > Here's the rub: nobody I know or have seen has
               | experienced a decline in their health from carnivore.
               | There's no hard evidence that it's bad for you.
               | 
               | Carnivore Diet wasn't really a thing until about 2018,
               | aside from scattered anecdotes ( https://trends.google.co
               | m/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=c... )
               | 
               | Heart disease develops over decades.
               | 
               | It's very disingenuous to declare that "there's no hard
               | evidence that it's bad for you" when the vast majority of
               | experimenters have barely been doing this for about 3-4%
               | of their expected lifespan.
        
             | dota_fanatic wrote:
             | Was going to link this exact article, but you beat me to
             | it. :) My biggest problem with Saladino's episode was that
             | early in it became clear that he is a zealot, and almost by
             | definition zealots are rarely generally "right" or "not
             | pseudoscience" as GP claims in this specific case.
             | Especially when their object of zealotry is an extremely
             | complex field that we're only just beginning to understand.
             | It's difficult to trust anything a zealot says. I surely
             | don't have time to dig into all the ways in which they're
             | using the "science" to support their perspective.
        
               | PragmaticPulp wrote:
               | Saladino isn't so much a zealot as he is a salesman. He's
               | building a personal brand and business around being the
               | contrarian carnivore guy. He wants you to buy his books,
               | buy his supplements (which cost as much as $68 per bottle
               | for trivially cheap ingredients), and sign up for his
               | newsletter so he can pitch you more stuff.
               | 
               | He may actually believe what he's pitching, but he's so
               | drowning in financial conflicts of interest and personal
               | brand-building that I don't think he could accept
               | contradictory evidence from anyone. He only sees what he
               | wants to see because that's how he makes his money and
               | builds his fame.
               | 
               | It's fascinating to see him cited by the grandparent
               | comment because Saladino is a notorious quack among the
               | actual nutrition communities, including keto communities.
               | He presents himself as a doctor but conveniently forgets
               | to mention that he's a psychiatrist. He cherry-picks
               | citations from papers that he knows listeners won't
               | actually read and then presents them out of context.
               | 
               | And most of all, he sells his brand and products hard,
               | which should be a huge red flag for anyone being
               | delivered this uniquely contrarian information that
               | defies mainstream medical science. It's fascinating that
               | this person concluded he's an expert in the field simply
               | because he was on the Joe Rogan podcast. I suppose that
               | is the problem with the JRE podcast: Too many of the
               | listeners think they're equipped to identify the real
               | truth, while Joe Rogan serves up a steady diet of
               | convincing quacks interleaved with actual experts.
        
             | dntrkv wrote:
             | This is the problem with misinformation nowadays.
             | Everything is "backed by studies." The problem is, the same
             | study can be interpreted to support two opposing views.
             | 
             | Hell, I'm sure if this Saladino guy just completely made up
             | a study and presented it as fact, the vast majority of the
             | users will never bother to check if that study even exists,
             | let alone verify the claims. Most listeners are just there
             | to reaffirm their preexisting beliefs.
             | 
             | Personally, I just don't trust people that push such narrow
             | solutions to complex systems (nutrition in this case).
        
           | nemothekid wrote:
           | > _Says people who don't watch joe rogan. Joe rogan has two
           | kinds of guests: experts /scientists and show biz people._
           | 
           | As someone who has been listening to Joe (on and off) for ~5
           | years, it's hard to believe that you haven't noticed a trend
           | in the type of guests Joe has on in past year. I really feel
           | it _used_ to be that Joe would have on a wide range of people
           | but now it seems that he 's created an echo chamber. For
           | example, at the start of the pandemic, in March, he had
           | Michael Osterholm on his show - a top epidemiologist. He took
           | it seriously at first, but once he was tired of lock downs,
           | he has had several more "alternative" scientists to appease
           | his world view and is pretty much antagonistic to anyone
           | else.
           | 
           | I was listening him talk to Rhonda Patrick this morning
           | (who's been on the show multiple times) and I was completely
           | flabbergasted about how incredulous he seemed to be then
           | Rhonda talked about vaccines. Think about that - this is one
           | of his most credentialed friends and now he's incredibly
           | skeptical as he's gotten even more dogmatic in his views.
           | 
           | And I'm sorry, diet fads are as old as America. You can pull
           | up medical papers justifying almost anything when it comes to
           | gastronomy. I hate this idea that has creeped further into
           | the American psyche that people are pushed out of the
           | mainstream because of the liberal boogeyman. You have quacks
           | that are backed up by as much data as Saladino saying that
           | going vegan will give you super powers. Some people are just
           | wrong, and I'd be critical of the praise Joe gives a guy like
           | Saladino given that Joe also has a vested interest in
           | Saladino being correct as well.
        
             | danenania wrote:
             | Dogmatic... really? It's hard for me to think of a _less_
             | dogmatic public figure. His views are all over the place,
             | change frequently, and aren 't at all consistent with each
             | other. His critics (on both right and left) generally seem
             | to want him to be more dogmatic, not less; they want him to
             | be consistent with _their own_ preferred dogma.
             | 
             | To me Joe comes across as someone who's figuring it out as
             | they go and doesn't have a filter. I personally find this
             | refreshing compared to zealots who are certain they have
             | all the right answers on very nuanced and complex topics.
             | 
             | Edit: Ok downvoters, what is Joe Rogan's "dogma"? Honest
             | question.
        
               | nemothekid wrote:
               | His views are only all over the place if you try to
               | bucket him in the American "Democrat/Republican" binary
               | bucket. If you listen to him for a long time he is
               | surprisingly consistent a number of issues. For example,
               | Joe is a huge supporter of public welfare. He grew up,
               | temporarily, on food stamps and has always pushed back
               | when even the most right of guests would call people on
               | welfare lazy. Likewise I feel he has an incredibly poor
               | track record on trans rights and can be very transphobic.
               | That said, it's very difficult for people to communicate
               | outside the "Democrat/Republican" playing field and
               | people seem to love team sports more than discussion. Now
               | that said, Joe is a human being and is welcome to his own
               | beliefs, but whereas before I felt like Joe would have a
               | mix of people on, his _newer_ guests tend to be people
               | who reaffirm his beliefs.
        
           | PragmaticPulp wrote:
           | > Joe rogan has two kinds of guests: experts/scientists and
           | show biz people. The former are why I watch the podcast.
           | 
           | Many of us have tried to listen to Joe Rogan for the former
           | category. When I catch an interview with someone I already
           | know and respect (e.g. John Carmack), it's not bad.
           | 
           | But Rogan is also notorious for bringing on over-confident
           | "experts" who present their pet theories as done deal
           | research. Saladino is a perfect example of this over-
           | confidence. Citing papers and having a medical degree doesn't
           | automatically make someone infallible or even correct.
           | 
           | > And he's an MD.
           | 
           | Saladino has a medical degree, but did you know he's a
           | psychiatrist? Perhaps a good degree to have for manipulating
           | people, but I prefer to get my nutrition research from
           | nutrition researchers, not psychiatrists who have webstores
           | selling $60 supplements.
           | 
           | Saladino profits by building his brand: He sells books. He
           | sells coaching. He sells extremely overpriced supplements. He
           | has a branded web page with his Joe Rogan interview as the
           | background and a "Join my Tribe" link at the top.
           | 
           | Saladino is a salesperson who is pitching you on his theories
           | to sell you products and extract money from you. Joe Rogan is
           | unqualified to push back on it, so he gives these people a
           | huge audience with which to push their agendas.
           | 
           | And it works! Here you are, completely convinced that
           | everything he said is true and accurate, while it's trivially
           | easy to find fact checkers showing how he made incorrect
           | claims all through that podcast (
           | https://www.biolayne.com/articles/research/paul-saladino-
           | on-... ).
           | 
           | That is the problem with Joe Rogan's podcast.
        
             | supperburg wrote:
             | Yes, I knew he specializes in psychiatry. He went to the
             | same medical school and took the same classes as any other
             | kind of doctor.
        
           | vernie wrote:
           | And we can't forget about Rogan's thought-provoking segment
           | with the DN guy.
        
           | techrat wrote:
           | You forgot the third kind of guest he has...
           | 
           | White supremacists and Crypto Fascists.
           | 
           | He just lets them talk unchallenged.
        
         | 99_00 wrote:
         | >acting like we know what's up better than the CDC
         | 
         | Bill Burr is a comedian. He's telling a joke. A joke something
         | someone says to cause amusement and and laughter.
         | 
         | Everyone should question and seek information on issues they
         | care about.
        
         | paulpauper wrote:
         | the health experts a year ago said vaccines would make this go
         | away, and before that they predicted that masks and social
         | distancing would flatten the curve. With the exception of a few
         | countries, none of that happened. At this ponit, I don't think
         | anyone knows anything.
         | 
         | due to rampant downvoting, I will respond to individual replies
         | here:
         | 
         | "This worked perfectly basically anywhere people actually
         | complied. "
         | 
         | Italy had among the strictest lockdowns in April but saw a huge
         | resurgence at the end of2020
         | 
         | " Largely it did happen, we just don't see the counterfactual.
         | It could have been a lot worse. "
         | 
         | That is moving the goalposts. The claim by the experts was that
         | the vaccines were 95% effective at stopping the spread. It
         | seemd that way until a few months ago when Deltacame along.
        
           | eloff wrote:
           | Vaccines, masks, and restrictions did all work to "flatten
           | the curve". Your assertion that they did not is a very
           | minority opinion and the onus is on you to back that up with
           | data.
           | 
           | It should be fully intuitive that anything that reduces the
           | r0 value for spreading the disease flattens the curve
           | compared to what it could have been. That somehow it is not
           | obvious to you suggests your sense making apparatus has been
           | hijacked by something. Take a good hard look at yourself.
           | 
           | To the downvoters, you are retarded. Sincerely.
        
           | nate_meurer wrote:
           | > _The claim by the experts was that the vaccines were 95%
           | effective at stopping the spread._
           | 
           | No, vaccines are not expected to prevent infection or
           | "spread", and almost none do. For example, flu vaccines don't
           | keep you from from getting infected, and the virus still
           | spreads successfully even when vaccination rates are high.
           | What the flu shot does is (hopefully) cause you to have less
           | severe symptoms.
           | 
           | Vaccines are designed and tested to prevent disease _in
           | spite_ of infection. This is a universally understood
           | principle in the field of immunology, regardless of the CDC
           | 's confusing messaging.
           | 
           | The current evidence indicates that the vaccines are doing a
           | good job of preventing hospitalizations due to covid.
        
             | read_if_gay_ wrote:
             | If that is such an universally understood principle then a
             | lot of people are badly misinformed. I can't count how
             | often I hear "if everybody just took the vaccine the virus
             | would be gone within _insert timespan_ " even in academic
             | circles.
        
               | nate_meurer wrote:
               | > _if everybody just took the vaccine the virus would be
               | gone within insert timespan_
               | 
               | No, the expectation is that a successful vaccination
               | campaign will end the pandemic, by making the burden on
               | healthcare systems manageable. Nobody serious thinks we
               | can eradicate the virus like we did with smallpox. It
               | will always be with us, causing infection.
               | 
               | This is how al vaccines work, with the exception of HPV
               | and possibly measles. Vaccines are not expected to
               | provide sterilizing immunity, and they don't need to as
               | long as they prevent serious disease due to the
               | infection.
               | 
               | Within the field of immunology this is common knowledge,
               | and I wish the CDC would message it more clearly.
        
           | recursive wrote:
           | It's not enough for vaccines to exist. People have get
           | vaccinated. That has not happened (enough).
           | 
           | How do you know the curve wasn't flattened? I don't know
           | whether it was or not. It seems the only way to find out for
           | sure is to compare the curve to what it would have been in an
           | alternate timeline.
        
           | kaibee wrote:
           | > they predicted that masks and social distancing would
           | flatten the curve.
           | 
           | This worked perfectly basically anywhere people actually
           | complied.
        
             | goostavos wrote:
             | https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/
        
               | mavhc wrote:
               | Seems like an unbiased source. I made my own chart:
               | https://imgur.com/a/mI8OdpW
        
               | knownjorbist wrote:
               | This really takes the cake for misleading charts, devoid
               | of context or controlling for other factors when drawing
               | conclusions.
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | The hivemind is always right. Conform or suffer.
        
           | pjc50 wrote:
           | Largely it did happen, we just don't see the counterfactual.
           | It could have been a lot worse.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | mikepurvis wrote:
           | First, places with high vaccination rates are crushing it.
           | There basically isn't a fourth wave in Waterloo Region [1],
           | and we have 85% one dose, 78% two doses at present.
           | 
           | Second, those predictions were made ahead of a year of
           | mutation-- delta in particular.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/health-and-
           | wellness/posit...
        
         | victor9000 wrote:
         | The problem people have with Joe Rogan, and everyone else like
         | him, is that they're spreading misinformation without having an
         | ounce of education in the subject at hand. People should be
         | listening to the CDC, the FDA, getting vaccinated, wearing
         | masks, and washing their hands. That is best solution we have
         | to the problem, end of story. No amount of agreeable platitudes
         | will make any difference if this disease continues to mutate
         | among the unvaccinated population. Arm chair commentators are
         | not more capable at understanding virology and immunology than
         | the CDC, and their beliefs are completely irrelevant when it
         | comes to fighting this disease.
        
           | pandeiro wrote:
           | The State is always benevolent and we should always believe
           | and do everything they say. End of story.
        
             | techrat wrote:
             | False dichotomy. You're not going to enable an honest
             | debate by going straight to fallacies.
        
           | ipaddr wrote:
           | The best solution is not a vaccine that works for a few
           | months requiring multiple booster shots meanwhile the rest of
           | the world cannot get enough for one shot. And then allowing
           | the rest of the world to fly in.
           | 
           | Putting all your faith in the CDC and choosing not to allow
           | yourself to form your own opinions is an interesting
           | strategy. It absolves you of any responsibility. Do you vote?
           | Choosing someone to make decisions on things you are not an
           | expert on would seem like a huge responsibility you wouldn't
           | be qualified for. Do you leave those decisions for others?
        
         | andrewmcwatters wrote:
         | Bill Burr might be right, but there are, for example, people
         | who think satirical news shows are actual _credible_ news. I
         | don 't think what Joe Rogan does is much above a step beyond
         | that sort of entertainment.
        
           | nmz wrote:
           | Fox news has news in its name and the daily show got emmy's
           | every single time, not to mention that time The colbert
           | report tried getting a super pac and managed to get it.
           | 
           | Last week tonight is quite credible.
        
           | jonny_eh wrote:
           | The Colbert Report did more to educate Americans about Super
           | PACs than any legit news source:
           | https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/stephen-
           | colberts...
           | 
           | Meanwhile Fox News continues to mislead Americans with active
           | disinformation on a daily basis.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | VelkaMorava wrote:
         | During that episode I have came to conclusion that Bill Burr is
         | who Joe Rogan sees as himself. Eloquent, humorous, says-
         | he's-stupid-but-he-is-actually-smart, able to step back and
         | look at all the stupid stuff everyone does (including himself).
         | 
         | Except Rogan is actually this:
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/8xofvi/joe_rogan_...
        
           | OJFord wrote:
           | I opened this thread wondering who Joe Rogan is; glancing at
           | that I'm not surprised I don't know, and have certainly lost
           | any interest in knowing!
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | The thing of Joe Rogan shouting at the primatologist about
           | the "new" chimpanzee is genuinely hilarious
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/__CvmS6uw7E
        
           | godelski wrote:
           | > During that episode I have came to conclusion that Bill
           | Burr is who ~~Joe Rogan~~ people on the internet see~~s~~
           | themselves as~~himself~~. Eloquent, humorous, says-
           | he's-stupid-but-he-is-actually-smart, able to step back and
           | look at all the stupid stuff everyone does (including
           | himself).
           | 
           | FTFY
           | 
           | Side note, on /r/Math the other day I saw a great joke.
           | 
           | People in real life: Ops, I'm bad at math. I need a
           | calculator to calculate a tip.
           | 
           | People on the internet: Allow me to demonstrate to you why
           | I'm bad at statistics but confident I'm right and all the
           | scientists are wrong.
        
           | serverholic wrote:
           | I've noticed that a lot of overly-confident people do this.
           | They essentially have a list of preferred topics and always
           | try to bring the conversation to those topics.
        
             | mjklin wrote:
             | > What's your rap these days? Most of us have one. Is it a
             | disquisition on the stupidity of television, the rapacity
             | of multinational corporations, how the Yuppies had it
             | coming to them, the thrills of motorcycling, the perils of
             | tuna fish? Some people are always ready to mount the
             | soapbox. (It's the twelfth time you've heard this guy's
             | tirade and it was already boring the second time around.)
             | 
             | > The worst sort of rap is the pet peeve. Pet peeves manage
             | to smuggle their way into every conversation, no matter
             | what the topic. Marty is hung up on America's foolishness
             | in not imposing tariffs against the Japanese. It's not
             | clear why he takes this so personally, but he's definitely
             | obsessed with the problem. The topic of conversation is
             | Monday-night football? Marty contrives a quick segue to the
             | state of television in America, orchestrates a smooth turn
             | to the subject of the future Japanese control of the
             | entertainment business, and-- presto-- tariffs. Marty's rap
             | is boring for the same reason the preacher's is-- it's
             | predictable-- but it's also an imposition. He uses friends
             | as a sounding board for his venting.
             | 
             | - From the book _Everyday Ethics_ by Joshua Halberstam
        
             | godelski wrote:
             | I don't mind this as much. At least they are talking about
             | things that they are knowledgeable about. What I don't like
             | is when people are overly confident about their YouTube
             | degree. The armchair experts that need to prove how smart
             | they are, even if you're an expert in the field they're
             | talking about. It is excruciatingly painful.
        
         | ErikVandeWater wrote:
         | The CDC has been an embarrassment. No emphasis on protecting
         | the most vulnerable.
        
         | beaner wrote:
         | For it to be the schtick that'd have to be sort of the pont of
         | the show, but it's only a topic of discussion so long as it's
         | made relevant by those in our society, and even then that
         | ignores the large diversity of guests and topics in his show.
         | 
         | There's nothing wrong with listening to two regular people have
         | a conversation regardless of their qualifications for the
         | topics they're discussing. They don't pretend to be
         | professionals. (Hence why that quote can be said and why they
         | can laugh about it.)
        
           | mmrezaie wrote:
           | I think we all know JRE is not about two people having shit
           | conversation. I used to listen to it since 2016. In the past
           | couple of years, JRE is all about let's bring out what
           | triggers the other side; no matter what the other side is all
           | about.
           | 
           | I have friends I have lost because of this, whom I have no
           | idea how to respond to their messages anymore; Intelligent
           | and educated ones.
           | 
           | Regular people argument doesn't apply in here.
        
             | hirvi74 wrote:
             | I agree. He used to have interesting guest, and I felt the
             | conversations were more organic. I quit watching a few
             | years back because I did not enjoy the direction the
             | podcast was going in.
        
           | pohl wrote:
           | Joe is "regular people"? He's a sitcom actor. He makes a
           | couple hundred million a year on podcast ad revenue alone. He
           | only presents himself as a "regular" person because that's
           | the demographic he's targeting.
        
             | manigandham wrote:
             | He does not make "hundreds of millions a year" on podcast
             | ad revenue, that's a ridiculously high number. The entire
             | podcast ad market is barely $1B total.
        
             | Bud wrote:
             | FYI, no, he makes about an order of magnitude less than
             | that, total, from all sources.
             | 
             | He made $30M last year.
        
               | usefulcat wrote:
               | The trees have been refuted but the forest remains..
        
         | 0xy wrote:
         | The CDC has repeatedly made misleading statements though.
         | 
         | In particular, the CDC recommended against the use of masks
         | early in the pandemic, which may have caused many thousands of
         | cases and deaths.
         | 
         | More recently, they've been wishy-washy on masks again.
         | Backflipping repeatedly on whether vaccinated individuals
         | should wear masks.
        
           | bloopernova wrote:
           | The various health authorities told people not to use masks
           | _at first_ because:
           | 
           | Hospitals were in danger of running out of protective
           | equipment.
           | 
           | The public was panic buying anything and everything. Remember
           | empty grocery store shelves? Price gouging people who were
           | hoarding all the hand sanitizer?
           | 
           | When those circumstances changed, so did the advice.
           | 
           | There's no one on earth who gets everything right first time,
           | and thus never needs to change their mind. Not one single
           | person.
           | 
           | Why do you value an opinion or advice that never changes?
        
             | 0xy wrote:
             | The CDC did not say "don't buy masks because healthcare
             | professionals need them". The CDC falsely claimed they were
             | not effective.
             | 
             | This false narrative persists even today.
             | 
             | How many thousands died because they were told by an
             | authority masks don't work?
             | 
             | Your point of view seems to suggest that the ends justify
             | the means. I ask you how many deaths are an acceptable
             | amount of collateral damage to protect the health system's
             | access to masks. 1,000? 5,000? 50,000?
        
               | wrycoder wrote:
               | It persists, because procedure/surgical masks do
               | virtually nothing to stop SARS2. [0] I won't even mention
               | cloth masks.
               | 
               |  _In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the
               | effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of
               | respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide
               | any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-
               | treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other
               | eleven suggest that masks are either useless--whether
               | compared with no masks or because they appear not to add
               | to good hand hygiene alone--or actually
               | counterproductive. Of the three studies that provided
               | statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat
               | analysis that was not contradicted within the same study,
               | one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand
               | hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one
               | found that the combination of surgical masks and hand
               | hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found
               | that cloth masks were less effective than surgical
               | masks._
               | 
               | N95 are better, but those are not generally available to
               | civilians.
               | 
               | [0] https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-
               | of-the-e...
        
               | CoryG89 wrote:
               | Umm, perhaps I'm mistaken, but I'm fairly certain that,
               | at least in the US, it's always been fairly easy to
               | obtain N95 masks, up until the pandemic. I realized I had
               | a box of them lying around which my ex-girlfriend had
               | purchased for painting.
        
             | tomp wrote:
             | So basically you're saying "they lied but it's OK because
             | it was a well-intentioned lie".
             | 
             | That's what's making people lose trust in institutions.
        
               | mynameisash wrote:
               | > So basically you're saying "they lied but it's OK
               | because it was a well-intentioned lie".
               | 
               | That's not at all what GP said. Try re-reading it:
               | 
               | >> health authorities told people not to use masks at
               | first because ... Hospitals were in danger of running out
               | of protective equipment.
               | 
               | That is in no way lying.
        
               | jldugger wrote:
               | I don't recall them saying 'hospitals need them more,'
               | but rather 'masks have no proven effect' while people
               | inside the CDC later admitted the concern was the first
               | bit. I'm pretty sure that's a lie; while maybe they can
               | argue about foment size effects etc. meant it technically
               | wasn't a lie, I think we can all agree the public heard
               | none of that nuance.
        
           | Bhilai wrote:
           | CDC is working with limited information on a novel virus. As
           | they are learning more they are shifting their guidance to
           | match the current understanding about how the virus spreads.
        
             | 0xy wrote:
             | CDC knowingly lied about masks, though. They knew
             | internally they should be used to mitigate spread, but
             | publicly discouraged their use.
             | 
             | There was no new information. There were only lies.
        
               | mavhc wrote:
               | That's because they were dealing with idiots, if you
               | don't want to be treated like idiots, don't be idiots.
        
               | symlinkk wrote:
               | If you don't want to be treated like a liar, don't be a
               | liar.
        
         | suzzer99 wrote:
         | This. I just wish he'd take his enormous reach a little more
         | seriously when he entertains quack pseudoscience as if it's an
         | equally valid POV to real peer-reviewed science.
        
           | nradov wrote:
           | You're asking a _professional comedian_ to be more serious?
           | Are you actually serious or is that a joke?
        
             | tych0 wrote:
             | Seems like GP might be talking about Joe Rogan.
        
               | Alupis wrote:
               | Joe Rogan is a professional comedian, among other side
               | gigs like his podcast and commentating UFC fights.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | frosted-flakes wrote:
             | JRE is not a comedy show though.
        
             | Bud wrote:
             | Being a comedian does not magically relieve a person from
             | their responsibility to not credulously spread around
             | dangerous pseudoscience during a pandemic. Plus, that's
             | simply not very funny. By the way, GP did not say "be more
             | serious", as you likely know. They said he should take his
             | enormous reach more seriously.
        
               | neither_color wrote:
               | Every influential social network already has disclaimers
               | with links to authoritative information about C-19 for
               | those who choose to inform themselves.
               | 
               | "Visit the covid 19 information center to learn more"
               | 
               | These are all over and post on Facebook, Youtube,
               | Twitter, etc whenever certain keywords trigger it. I
               | think this is not enough. We need to replace all right of
               | center entertainment with videos of Dr Fauci reminding us
               | to wash our hands, wear masks, get our shots and do the
               | right thing by staying home. Not enough people are
               | getting this message.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | If you give a monkey a machine gun, and the monkey shoots
               | someone, we don't blame the monkey.
               | 
               | Society has always had court jesters who poke fun at
               | authority. If you take health and epidemiology advice
               | from a _comedian_ then that 's on you.
        
               | colinmhayes wrote:
               | Joe Rogan is the one giving the gun is your scenario, so
               | you're claiming we should blame him?
        
               | aaronbrethorst wrote:
               | _If you take health and epidemiology advice from a
               | comedian then that 's on you_
               | 
               | And every person you infect.
        
               | ds206 wrote:
               | And every person you don't infect?
        
               | CydeWeys wrote:
               | That metaphor doesn't work though because Joe Rogan is a
               | person, not a monkey. Give a person a machine gun and if
               | they shoot someone you _do_ blame them.
        
               | mavhc wrote:
               | But what if he only did it for the lulz?
        
               | ds206 wrote:
               | "Being a comedian does not magically relieve a person
               | from their responsibility to not credulously spread
               | around dangerous pseudoscience during a pandemic."
               | 
               | Yeah, I think it does. Has he been cancelled? Nope. Does
               | he stop making jokes about almost anything? Nope. Do you
               | listen to his podcast? Nope.
               | 
               | You know how he became so popular? From talking and being
               | open minded. That's _all_ he does. He ain't doing it to
               | be an influencer yet "journalists" actually waste time
               | writing articles like this. I guess the haters need
               | something to read too?
        
             | colinmhayes wrote:
             | Joe's anti mask bullshit has caused people to die. Yea, I'd
             | like him to take that seriously.
        
               | neither_color wrote:
               | Are you accusing Joe Rogan of manslaughter?
        
             | dntrkv wrote:
             | Yeah that's Joe's classic defense. He's part of the
             | "Intellectual Dark Web" (lol...) and he tries to have
             | serious discussions and opinions on important matters. But
             | as soon as someone points out how stupid and misleading
             | some of his takes are, he falls back on the "I'm just a
             | comedian" excuse.
             | 
             | Like someone else pointed out, Bill Burr is exactly what
             | you describe. He's a comedian that discusses these topics
             | but never gives the illusion that he is somehow qualified
             | and someone that should be listened to. Joe does.
        
             | coryfklein wrote:
             | I've listened to 4-5 Joe Rogan episodes and not once got
             | the impression that he was trying to be a comedian. Now I
             | may be an idiot, but I don't think I'm _exceptionally_
             | idiotic compared to most folks who might come across his
             | content.
        
             | labster wrote:
             | Comedy is a profession. Professionals should take their job
             | seriously. Just because the product is fun and games
             | doesn't mean social responsibility ends.
        
               | nradov wrote:
               | Comedy is an _occupation_ , not a profession. Actual
               | professions have specialized training, a defined body of
               | knowledge, ethical standards, and a formal certification
               | process. For example: law, medicine, teaching,
               | architecture, accountancy. Comedians have no more social
               | responsibility than any other random person. There's no
               | comedian's guild that's going to kick out a comic for
               | being irresponsible.
        
           | hhsbz wrote:
           | Is this a joke? How many different things have scientists
           | said about every single thing that has happened in this
           | pandemic?
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | secondcoming wrote:
           | That's what Joe Rogan's show is all about. It's pretty much
           | him talking about the same nonsense that anyone else would
           | talk about when hanging out with their friends. He never
           | pretended to be anything else, and it's why his show is so
           | popular. That said, since he moved to Spotify I've hardly
           | seen anything other than the occasional clip on AdTube.
           | 
           | If you want high-brow stuff there's Lex Fridman's channel.
        
             | atlgator wrote:
             | Lex Fridman does the same thing for non-robotics/AI issues.
             | It's wild how someone so brilliant in one area can be so
             | naive in another.
        
               | picklesman wrote:
               | I was cringing during his discussion with Rogan because
               | of this.
               | 
               | It's a common pitfall for a certain type of nerd to think
               | that expertise in one area allows them to make claims in
               | completely unrelated fields.
               | 
               | That and he didn't challenge Rogan's mostly unfounded
               | claims about the COVID vaccine among other things. I
               | understand that it must be difficult I do so as a guest,
               | but for someone who fancies himself "rational" it was
               | disappointing to say the least.
        
             | amusedcyclist wrote:
             | Lex Fridman is not highbrow or academic lol, hes a hype
             | machine just like most tech media
        
               | secondcoming wrote:
               | I see. What podcasts do you follow?
        
               | fbru02 wrote:
               | Machine Learning Street Talk
        
             | Barrin92 wrote:
             | Fridman is slowly going down the same route with more and
             | more comedians and nutritionists and ufo people on his
             | channel. I wish he just had sticked to interview scientists
             | because nowadays I probably archive 2/3 of his episodes.
        
         | AzzieElbab wrote:
         | I clicked that yt link and saw two friends with sense of humor
         | busting each others balls. ppl are reading too much into things
        
         | micromacrofoot wrote:
         | This is the most frustrating thing about Rogan for me... if he
         | were talking to people as an uniformed layman and sharing his
         | opinion in an effort to weed through his thoughts and become
         | more informed, that would be great! We need more people who are
         | willing to be wrong and learn from that. This is often how Bill
         | Burr comes across (to me, anyway).
         | 
         | But Rogan's not that. He likes to hear himself talk, throws his
         | opinions at experts as if they're equally valid, invites
         | charlatans on and equates them with experts, rarely changes his
         | mind, and comes out of it just as dumb as he came into it. Then
         | people emulate him and end up in a state where they're less
         | able to learn, and frankly, bigger assholes.
         | 
         | It's barely even a shtick, it's the same old pseudo-
         | intellectual machismo that has always plagued society.
        
           | techrat wrote:
           | The worst part for me was when Rogan started allowing people
           | who were spewing obvious bullshit... to have his platform
           | unchallenged.
           | 
           | When someone tells you who they are, listen. But I'd add
           | this: When someone lets someone else speak for them, pay
           | attention to who is in that group.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | xupybd wrote:
       | I have a Spotify subscription. I used to watch Joe on YouTube. I
       | haven't since he moved. I use Spotify at work to have something
       | to drown out the noise around me. I watch YouTube to relax. My
       | habits mean I don't even think of going to Spotify for a podcast.
        
         | djrogers wrote:
         | Looks like I was mistaken - there is a JRE channel but it may
         | be just clips
        
           | neartheplain wrote:
           | Not exactly. He no longer posts full episodes to YouTube,
           | just occasional clips:
           | 
           | https://www.youtube.com/user/PowerfulJRE
        
           | xupybd wrote:
           | I used to sit down and watch an hour or two of a full
           | interview. I've not done so since I'd have to use Spotify to
           | watch a full interview.
        
       | fridif wrote:
       | Joe has publicly said that he did the deal for the money and
       | nothing else. More power to him. Y'all have it twisted.
        
         | blueprint wrote:
         | how do they have it twisted?
        
           | chucksta wrote:
           | They think he cares more about his reach then is dollars
        
             | Alupis wrote:
             | In the podcasting world, reach == dollars. With a declining
             | audience, his show will generate declining revenue for
             | Spotify, and eventually he will receive less money because
             | of it.
             | 
             | Keep in mind, Rogan said multiple times on his show he
             | would never sell out because he wanted to do whatever he
             | wanted to do... then he sold out to a platform that
             | immediately cut off a large portion of his viewership.
        
             | blueprint wrote:
             | who does?
        
       | chimen wrote:
       | He left a void which is now being filled by Lex Friedman and
       | others. Rogan doesn't even bother placing something about the
       | podcast in title - he just names the guest which doesn't say
       | anything to me so I dropped his show long time ago. Even went
       | that far and send him an email regarding how frustrating it is to
       | just listen to show after show until you find a subject that you
       | like.
       | 
       | What he lost with YouTube is their algorithm which kept
       | recommending bits and pieces aligned to what the user was already
       | watching. With Spotify he's just there as an author/podcaster -
       | nothing on the subject of what I am currently listening - he lost
       | the context.
       | 
       | I placing his growth on YouTube and its recommendation engine
       | more than anything else.
        
       | the_third_wave wrote:
       | Yes, of course he's losing influence seeing as how he's
       | haemorrhaging listeners - like me - who do not want to get
       | Spotify only to listen to Rogan. He often has interesting guests,
       | he has no problems trampling all over the boundaries of
       | correctness (which I deem to be a good thing) but he should have
       | realised that there is a large overlap between the group of
       | people who might be interested in listening to such conversations
       | and the group of people who do not want to feed the Big Data
       | Beast by installing and running apps like Spotify. I listen to a
       | lot of netcasts using my own aggregator (based on Airsonic) which
       | can handle anything which is available through an RSS feed.
       | Spotify does not integrate with this system which means that
       | Spotify-only content simply will be ignored - there is enough
       | competition on the netcast market after all.
        
       | salamanderman wrote:
       | Good
        
       | atlgator wrote:
       | The only Joe Rogan episodes worth watching are the Tim Dillon
       | ones. If you know, you know. Otherwise, I stopped watching when
       | he moved to Spotify. It's just a terrible platform all-around. He
       | destroyed his brand for $150M.
        
         | meowface wrote:
         | Tim Dillon episodes are my favorites, but IMO he hasn't totally
         | run out of good guests since the Spotify move. The Dave
         | Chappelle and Quentin Tarantino ones were pretty interesting to
         | watch.
        
         | comodore_ wrote:
         | Life in the big city.
        
       | zepto wrote:
       | This seemed like the obvious trap he was going to fall into.
       | 
       | I used to listen to him when he interviewed someone I was
       | interested in. I even installed Spotify so I can access his
       | podcast.
       | 
       | In practice, because I don't use Spotify for anything else, I
       | have simply forgotten about him.
        
         | topspin wrote:
         | "This seemed like the obvious trap he was going to fall into."
         | 
         | He cashed in before his expiration date. Brilliant move.
        
           | kbenson wrote:
           | He was given $100 million dollars up front to crash before
           | his expiration date. Yes, that is a brilliant move.
        
             | noveltyaccount wrote:
             | wow, I never heard that figure, that is staggering IMO,
             | I've never understood why Joe was famous, never got his
             | appeal. Per WSJ, "The deal with Mr. Rogan is a multiyear
             | licensing agreement for an amount of time that couldn't be
             | learned. It will likely be worth more than $100 million
             | based on milestones and performance metrics, according to
             | the person familiar." Wonder what those milestones are like
             | and how important they are to Joe.
             | https://www.wsj.com/articles/spotify-strikes-exclusive-
             | podca...
        
               | incadenza wrote:
               | I don't like Joe Rogan but his earlier episodes were my
               | first introduction to real long form, off the cuff
               | conversations that have become pretty common now. Even
               | relatively recently, I watched the Bernie Sanders one and
               | felt like I hadn't really heard Bernie Sanders just have
               | a conversation like that for a long period. Among others
               | I know, that, at least used to, be the appeal.
        
         | sschueller wrote:
         | He said not to long ago that he was actually hoping to be less
         | famous and relevant by moving to Spotify. He wanted less lime
         | light. However to him it backfired as more people are talking
         | about him although less are probably actually listening.
        
         | Bellamy wrote:
         | Would you fell into a trap like this for 100.000.000$?
        
           | zepto wrote:
           | Apparently he made $30M in the year before the deal.
           | 
           | If the deal lasts for more than 2 years, then he has made a
           | serious error.
        
             | selfhoster11 wrote:
             | You can retire with a high standard of living for the rest
             | of your life with that amount as a lump sum. It's not clear
             | to me that the decision was wrong.
        
             | Proven wrote:
             | There's no question that can't be solved with elementary
             | school math, right?
             | 
             | Did he personally tell you that entering 2025 with a net
             | worth of $175 rather than $195 million would present a
             | serious problem for him? Does he not care more about other
             | things in life?
        
             | tomjakubowski wrote:
             | Is Spotify the only source of revenue from his podcast? I
             | don't listen to JRE, but this thread suggests he's still
             | running third-party ads on the show. Presumably then he's
             | still getting some portion of that $30M/year on top of what
             | Spotify pays him.
             | 
             | > Spotify doesn't play or include ads that interrupt the
             | listening experience of Premium subscribers. However, some
             | podcast creators may include third-party advertising, host-
             | read endorsements, or sponsorship messages in their
             | episodes.
             | 
             | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-
             | etc...
        
               | ganoushoreilly wrote:
               | Not only does he run the ads (though I suspect spotify
               | reaps those benefits), they're randomly inserting them in
               | the podcast now and it's annoying. Sometimes it's mid
               | sentence.
               | 
               | Annoying to both pay for spotify and get hammered with
               | ads. Granted I pay for the music, but it's still annoying
               | as all.
        
               | christoph wrote:
               | When this happened to me I assumed Spotify had become
               | logged out of my account somehow. Nope, they're injecting
               | adverts randomly into paying customers podcasts. I
               | cancelled Spotify that moment. I never really agreed with
               | their attempted land grab on podcasts, this, however, I
               | felt had really crossed a line. There are plenty of other
               | podcasts I listen to, some without ads, supported only by
               | Patreon, etc. so the money I spent on Spotify will get
               | redistributed to them.
        
               | nebula8804 wrote:
               | Its even worse, up until a few weeks ago, you could rip
               | his podcasts using youtube-dl. I am paying for a
               | subscription to support him but ripping his podcasts and
               | throwing away their garbage app in favor of Jellyfin. Now
               | they have begun encrypting his podcasts with Widevine. :/
               | 
               | Since I still have to listen to ads, i'm thinking of just
               | dropping the subscription and hoping there becomes a
               | method to break this Widevine trash. I encounter a bug
               | with their app on a daily basis and I am tired of it.
               | From what I gather, there are different levels of
               | Widevine encryption that limit video quality but the
               | lower levels are crackable. I hope someone smarter than
               | me tries the crack on the JRE podcast.
        
             | aidenn0 wrote:
             | That assumes that his podcast had at least 3 years of legs,
             | which is not at all clear to me.
        
       | TedShiller wrote:
       | I like Joe Rogan but yeah I didn't follow him to Spotify. Can't
       | wait for him to come back.
        
       | throwawaysea wrote:
       | Spotify and Rogan is a key example of how centralization into
       | walled gardens is detrimental. I enjoyed easy, uncensored access
       | to Joe Rogan's interviews and clips from them previously. But
       | without that ease of access, I basically forgot about him. This
       | is despite me being a paying customer of Spotify.
       | 
       | Spotify has also demonstrated that they cannot be trusted,
       | neutral stewards of information ecosystems like podcasts. They've
       | censored/deleted lots of Joe Rogan's interviews, and their left-
       | biased progressive employees have repeatedly protested against
       | Rogan and asked for him to be booted off the platform. There is
       | absolutely no way I will patronize podcasts on Spotify since I
       | don't want to hand such a group the keys to the castle.
        
       | tejohnso wrote:
       | I find myself listening to Lex much more, and Joe much less.
       | Overall, I'm very glad that the format exists, and we're able to
       | hear from experts / academics who otherwise wouldn't have a
       | platform to really get into the details of their work.
        
       | bob229 wrote:
       | Who cares
        
       | trimbo wrote:
       | Maybe it's because an election concluded and all news-type media
       | has dropped off considerably.
       | 
       | https://thehill.com/homenews/media/551210-tv-news-ratings-on...
        
         | elliekelly wrote:
         | Joe Rogan is not "news-type" media by any stretch of the
         | imagination.
        
       | truthwhisperer wrote:
       | written by a journalist who does not understand statistics. He is
       | still gaining twitter followers but not on the same rate.
       | 
       | so his reach grows, but not as fast as it used to be.
       | 
       | probably the same journalist who write about climate change
        
       | betwixthewires wrote:
       | Yeah I know I stopped listening since the show went exclusive. I
       | didn't listen to every single episode he did, but I did listen
       | pretty regularly. I have not seen a single one since and don't
       | really care to.
       | 
       | I won't get an account with a company just to hear what you have
       | to say. If you require that, as far as I'm concerned your
       | influence just waned a little. I'm steadfast and unflinching in
       | this, it is a firm rule I have.
        
       | dec0dedab0de wrote:
       | It's obvious that ratings are down, but it's still enough to make
       | money. Here are Some recent changes I can think of that cause
       | lower ratings, all but one are related to Spotify.
       | 
       | Spotify is awful to use.
       | 
       | Not live anymore.
       | 
       | Haven't done the fight companion since the Brian Callen
       | allegations.
       | 
       | Too afraid to be cancelled.
       | 
       | So many more podcasts now. Especially Tim Dillon and Flagrant2.
        
       | goodfight wrote:
       | He wanted less attention, you can't be king of the hill forever
        
       | chromejs10 wrote:
       | Good
        
       | anfogoat wrote:
       | I enjoyed listening to Joe's podcast quite a bit, and had been
       | since around the hundredth episode, but to me podcasts always
       | equaled audio files indexed in an RSS feed. So as far as I'm
       | concerned Spotify does not have podcasts, and that they tout
       | otherwise is enough for me to avoid them out of spite, Joe or no
       | Joe.
       | 
       | Haven't heard Joe's voice in my ear since mid 2020.
        
       | bamboozled wrote:
       | After his "emergency" podcast on Ivermectin, I'd day this is
       | likely net positive thing for society.
       | 
       | Not a personal attack on the guy, I just think maybe all the
       | influence is going to his head a bit.
        
       | shoulderfake wrote:
       | Echochamber effect here I presume. Joe Rogan is doing just fine
       | on Spotify. He can choose not to extend at the end of his
       | contract, go back to YouTube and continue just where he left off.
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | >Joe Rogan is doing just fine on Spotify.
         | 
         | This article produced data to back up their assertion, I would
         | be curious to see the data you're looking at that helps you
         | make yours.
        
           | Dma54rhs wrote:
           | That implies constant growth is the only measurable metric.
           | Probably it is for Spotify, maybe for Rogan, but it doesn't
           | have to be.
        
             | jjulius wrote:
             | No, it asks for any specific example of how one might
             | suggest he is doing "just fine". I would just like to see
             | _why_ someone thinks this article is incorrect, not simply
             | that they think so. I would be fine with someone suggesting
             | an alternative to constant growth as an example.
        
               | scrumbledober wrote:
               | i think making $100 million could definitely be
               | considered on the high side of doing "just fine"
        
       | Darmody wrote:
       | I used to see his clips on recommended and after watching some of
       | them I would look for the whole podcast if it was interesting.
       | 
       | Now I don't even read the name Joe Rogan if I'm not watching UFC.
       | 
       | It's sad because I really enjoyed some of his content.
        
       | CoryG89 wrote:
       | Anecdotally, for me I didn't watch it religiously, but I would
       | watch anytime there was a guest that I liked or found
       | interesting. I haven't watched a single show since he moved to
       | Spotify.
        
       | wnevets wrote:
       | At some point most of his listeners will realize just how
       | terrible he is. MMA is supposed to be his bread and butter but
       | his takes are absolutely trash. Every fighter is a killer, every
       | champion is the GOAT, etc.
        
       | elzbardico wrote:
       | Spotify is no longer the only kid in town. First I had moved to
       | tidal because of supposedly better audio. Then one day I figured
       | out that I already pay for prime and get prime music with it,
       | already pay Apple's one iCloud bundle and get Apple Music with
       | it, so tidal also went to the cancellation hole with Spotify. Not
       | going to have an Spotify account just to listen to Joe Rogan.
        
       | anm89 wrote:
       | Im sure the money was more than enough for him to feel
       | compensated
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | Yeah it's not like Joe's goal in life was to influence people.
         | Dude wants to make a living talking to people, which he's
         | achieved 100fold
        
           | anm89 wrote:
           | I agree. I don't think influence isn't important to him but I
           | don't think he is in it for world domination.
        
       | Bellamy wrote:
       | I'm paying Spotify Premium and still have to listen ads during
       | the show.
       | 
       | Spotify also sends video even though I just need the audio. It's
       | a waste of valuable bandwidth and CPU.
       | 
       | If there would an alternative I would take it.
       | 
       | Anyway I have definitely listened JRE way less lately...
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | >I'm paying Spotify Premium and still have to listen ads during
         | the show.
         | 
         | I have Spotify and don't listen to podcasts much at all. When I
         | have, it hasn't been on Spotify and I've always been able to
         | skip through the recording to get past the ad (either with a
         | "skip fwd 15 secs" button or by grabbing the slider and moving
         | it manually). Does Spotify not offer that capability?
        
           | jazzyjackson wrote:
           | They've made it simple to skip ads because each ad pops up as
           | a track that you can scrobble to the end of. I assume they're
           | satisfied with this because my dragging my finger across the
           | name of the advertiser is probably a better signal of
           | impression than hoping I was actually present during the ad
           | roll.
           | 
           | But Apple podcasts "skip 15sec" is still easier, I can do it
           | without looking while driving.
        
             | neartheplain wrote:
             | >each ad pops up as a track that you can scrobble to the
             | end of
             | 
             | The first time this happened to me (while loading up a Joe
             | Rogan podcast), I legitimately thought Spotify was
             | glitching out. There's no visual indication in the app that
             | it's a temporary ad, or of how many ads you have to listen
             | to before the episode starts. I made it to the beginning of
             | the third ad track before giving up.
        
               | jazzyjackson wrote:
               | I did experience an infinite ad loop once and force
               | closed the app and opened it again. Spotify is buggy AF.
        
         | jjice wrote:
         | There's a setting to disable video podcasts and only get the
         | audio. I don't want to watch a podcast via Spotify, and I hate
         | that it's hidden away in settings, but it is there.
        
         | a9h74j wrote:
         | Not a single-video-file like solution, but you might think e.g.
         | Youtube, Spotify etc could sync a separate audio file and stop
         | the video streaming when a tab is hidden. Such a predictable
         | waste of bandwidth, as you observe, that it might even merit
         | browser support.
        
           | Andys wrote:
           | YouTube premium does this
        
           | Andys wrote:
           | YouTube premium does this.
        
         | willcipriano wrote:
         | The guys who rip it to YouTube cut out the commercials, and
         | NewPipe delivers the audio feed ad free. I'm not a big Rogan
         | guy but even if I paid for Spotify I'd probably watch it that
         | way.
        
           | nebula8804 wrote:
           | Is there some reliable source of his podcasts on Youtube?
           | Like a hidden channel or something that won't be taken down
           | by copyright requests every 5 seconds?
        
             | willcipriano wrote:
             | A search for "Joe Rogan Full Podcast" (Full is a magic word
             | on YouTube for this sort of thing, "Full Movie" "Full
             | Episode" etc) typically works for me, but you may have to
             | warm up the recommendation algorithm so it recommends
             | similar channels to what you have watched before (ie. fly
             | by night channels hosting ripped podcasts).
        
       | secondcoming wrote:
       | I'm not sure the article's method of measuring influence is
       | valid.
       | 
       | - It assumes Twitter use is constant and its not losing users
       | (I've deactivated my account, even though I hardly used it).
       | 
       | - It assumes Twitter hasn't improved bot detection since before
       | 
       | - It assumes that the issue is with Rogan rather than the guest
       | (maybe it could be argued that Rogan is getting 'uninteresting'
       | guests because of a waning influence)
        
       | chadlavi wrote:
       | Good.
        
       | comodore_ wrote:
       | these seem like very flawed metrics to say the least. but then
       | for twitter journos, twitter is everything.
        
       | optimalsolver wrote:
       | Just like Howard Stern moving to satellite radio or whatever it
       | was.
       | 
       | Out of sight, out of mind.
       | 
       | This is also the dilemma writers face when putting their content
       | behind a paywall. The conversation just moves on without you.
        
       | jollybean wrote:
       | All regular media consumption is down, ratings for all news is
       | down, I think we're all suffering from social media consumption
       | fatigue, and there's is also an explosion of podcasts to listen
       | to now.
       | 
       | The Economist has daily 45 minutes, Conan O'Brien is on audio
       | only etc..
       | 
       | And he might actually have a broader audience than before, does
       | it matter that much that guests 'new follower' metrics are down?
       | 
       | I think there's a broader context to consider here.
        
         | falcrist wrote:
         | > All regular media consumption is down, ratings for all news
         | is down, I think we're all suffering from social media
         | consumption fatigue
         | 
         | A quick google search seems to contradict this. Can you point
         | me towards a source that backs these claims?
        
       | beebmam wrote:
       | The more he embraces conspiracy theories, the less I find him
       | persuasive. At this point, with his embrace of anti-vaccination
       | ideas and being completely mostly to medical science and the
       | scientific community out of contrarianism, I find him more
       | annoying than interesting.
        
       | slickrick216 wrote:
       | Joe Rogan confined to his bath of money doesn't care in the
       | slightest.
        
       | andrewzah wrote:
       | I think anyone would take that deal for $100 million. Joe's the
       | real winner while people argue in the comments about this or that
       | about his podcast. Clearly, having controversial guests on is
       | fantastic for his podcast's influence.
       | 
       | I don't think Spotify is good for podcasts in general. I much
       | prefer to consume podcasts with my own clients and workflows.
       | Even youtube is better since it actually works well unlike the
       | spotify app in my experience.
        
         | ldiracdelta wrote:
         | Exactly. I used to enjoy Joe Rogan, but I have my podcast
         | system and I'm unwilling to change. I'm absolutely not going to
         | change from a working federated system via RSS/atom xml to a
         | centralized system where the employees throw a hissy fit about
         | crime-think. I'm sure Spotify converted many customers and at
         | $100 million, Joe Rogan won regardless.
        
       | orange_puff wrote:
       | Maybe all good things simply need to come to an end. I feel like
       | he basically has boomer politics now and the same predictable
       | opinion over and over can get old. My brother said something that
       | I think is true; Joe seems like the kind of guy who believes
       | whatever the last person he spoke to said, so after moving to
       | Austin he's become more conservative.
        
         | rattlesnakedave wrote:
         | >all good things simply need to come to an end I think this is
         | the crux of it. After >1600 episodes, how much is there left to
         | say?
        
       | kevwil wrote:
       | Good.
       | 
       | Sorry, Joe, but that was a bad move. Let me know when you start
       | podcasting again.
       | 
       | The turf war over the commercialization of podcasting reminds me
       | of the Internet - designed to be free and open, destined to be
       | walled off from free use and exploited to death.
        
       | markus_zhang wrote:
       | The ones with Carmack and an ex-pilot (regarding UFO) were
       | interesting. Other than that I really didn't have any knowledge
       | of. It's more of the people he interviewed then his channel.
        
         | yellow_lead wrote:
         | It's even hard to listen to these. I have heard enough of
         | Rogan's "Wow!" and "Really?" to last a lifetime.
        
           | bostonsre wrote:
           | Lex did one [1] with the same pilot that saw the ufo
           | (commander fravor). I went from "no friggin way do they
           | exist" to "shit... it actually sounds plausible".
           | 
           | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8zcAttP1E
        
         | falcrist wrote:
         | I had no idea John Carmack had gone on the podcast.
        
           | mwidell wrote:
           | John Carmack and James Hetfield are a couple of very
           | interesting guests he had.
        
       | surajs wrote:
       | Joe has had one hell of a run, I don't think he minds losing
       | influence
        
       | billylindeman wrote:
       | Pretty much haven't listened at all since his move to spotify. I
       | don't blame him for selling out at all, but spotify is garbage
       | for podcasts. If he went back to youtube I'd probably watch again
        
       | Goety wrote:
       | He needs more mainstream influence. Spotify does not promote
       | itself well.
        
       | rob_c wrote:
       | So the verge finds something preferentially biased against some
       | right wing creator therefore something obviously unbiased...
       | 
       | It's reminding me of the gay frogs. Some truth, with an annoying
       | presentation that distracts from the point.
        
       | soheil wrote:
       | I think 2nd guest appearances are not going to see as big of a
       | spike in followers than the 1st in general since it's likely that
       | the same audience who were going to follow the guest have already
       | done so, so not sure how much of this decrease can be attributed
       | to a platform change.
        
       | fedreserved wrote:
       | Make sure to circle back for the Tom ONeil episode. He spent 20
       | years writing a book about Charles Manskm, and unearthed several
       | earth shattering revelations about the case.1. cia was most
       | likely involved in allowing Charles Manson who was on probation
       | throughout the entire period get away with multiple probation
       | violations after spending half his life in prison. As a criminal
       | defense attorney with the evidence he laid oitz it's obviois
       | Manson had some sort of guardian angel Also lead prosecutor led
       | key witnesses to commit perjury. The motive for the Tate murder
       | the prosecutor put on was to send a message to the record
       | producer who used to own the house. Key witnesses told him that
       | the record producer was seem several times after the murders
       | happened, and at trial the testimony was different.
        
       | SXX wrote:
       | When he moved to Spotify I suppose I'll get his podcasts from
       | torrents, but then I end up finding far more interesting podcasts
       | to replace him. After all if any of his episodes are interesting
       | I can just listen them two years later.
        
         | captaindiego wrote:
         | Any recommendations you can offer for interesting podcasts?
        
           | SXX wrote:
           | As already mentioned there is Lex Fridman. Some people
           | including me dislike the way he speaks, but listening on x2+
           | speed fixes that. I also enjoyed The Tim Ferris Show and he
           | generally have more guests who are not related to tech.
           | 
           | Though I mostly went deeper into podcasts related to software
           | engineering and since most of them include a lot of off-topic
           | some are quite fun: Soft Skills Engineering, The Bike Shed,
           | Indie Hackers Podcast, Talk Python to Me, Unnamed RE Podcast.
           | 
           | So there is always more interesting podcasts than time I have
           | for listening. Might be you can't replace Rogan with one
           | show, but you can always diversify.
        
           | Zelphyr wrote:
           | I would like to mention Armchair Expert but they cashed in at
           | the Bank of Spotify as well. Such a shame because it's a
           | really enjoyable podcast.
           | 
           | That said; _Jocko Podcast_ is good, though the subject matter
           | can be very heavy at times.
           | 
           |  _Lex Fridman_ podcast is good. Some people don 't like his
           | somewhat monotoned voice but he has interesting guests.
           | 
           |  _Literally! With Rob Lowe_ is fun.
        
       | RobLach wrote:
       | Sure you can blame spotify but generally personality based
       | entertainment goes in and out of vogue quite quickly.
        
       | pleb_nz wrote:
       | 8m not sure how his podcasts were distributed previously, but I
       | would have thought a more multiplatform approach would work
       | better long term. A lot of people don't have Spotify, I'm one of
       | those, for the same price as Spotify I can get YouTube premium
       | for me and the extended family, kill all ads, allow downloads and
       | access to a decent music streaming catalog. Last time I checked
       | the prices were not to dissimilar.
        
         | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
         | It did. Joe even said he didn't care about itunes ratings back
         | in the day. He just wanted people to listen to it in anyway
         | they liked.
        
         | laurent92 wrote:
         | I think he was promised $100m for the Spotify exclusivity. No
         | multiplatform works better than $100m ;)
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | It has also been argued Joe sold out at way too low of a
           | price.
           | 
           | https://www.supercast.com/blog/joe-rogan-got-ripped-off
        
           | meowface wrote:
           | Apparently it was a bigger number than that, though the exact
           | number isn't known.
        
           | ProAm wrote:
           | I think it was more than 100MM, he was making ~30MM per year
           | on his own, and he signed a 3 year deal with Spotify. Im not
           | sure why you'd sell for the exact amount you'd make if you
           | just kept doing what you are doing with the exception of
           | having to handle all advertising yourself and possible
           | delisting/banning from YouTube.
        
             | laurent92 wrote:
             | So he was a unicorn? A startup valued at a billion dollars
             | was supposed to be so rare that it's a unicorn, and now
             | people are doing that with a microphone in a cave ;) (or
             | little more, but technically he's one voice).
        
       | tailspin2019 wrote:
       | Joe Rogan moving to Spotify is like Twitter moving to requiring
       | login.
       | 
       | The increased friction has resulted in stopping me from consuming
       | two things that I should have been cutting down on anyway.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | AzzieElbab wrote:
       | It is hard to make an argument against YT having the highest
       | reach among vloging platforms. However, repeated guests not
       | gaining as many Twitter followers as they did after first visit
       | might be an indication of diminishing returns
        
         | jazzyjackson wrote:
         | Could also be a commensurate drop in interest in Twitter
        
       | newbamboo wrote:
       | I thought this at first, but now think the opposite is true. His
       | viewpoints were more diluted previously. A smaller base is of
       | regular listeners paradoxically makes his messages stronger.
        
         | nyx-aiur wrote:
         | Does it?
        
         | bitwize wrote:
         | Inasmuch as his message doesn't offend Spotify, their key
         | strategic partners, or their financial service providers --
         | sure, I'll buy that.
        
           | newbamboo wrote:
           | Censorship is worse on YouTube. Think of how many affiliates
           | YouTube/google/nbc has. I'd say more than Spotify. There's a
           | reason AM radio has more "extreme" content than FM radio. A
           | wider audience means more people to appease; have to cater to
           | the common denominator.
        
             | InitialLastName wrote:
             | > There's a reason AM radio has more "extreme" content than
             | FM radio. A wider audience means more people to appease;
             | have to cater to the common denominator.
             | 
             | What? AM stations tend to have larger ranges (FM is limited
             | by line-of-sight). There tends to be more talk on AM
             | because the audio quality is lower (and more susceptible to
             | interference); I would assume that talk radio (where
             | opinions are actually being discussed) would naturally have
             | more "extreme" content than music, where the opinions are
             | diluted by the presence of other content.
        
         | snowwrestler wrote:
         | Does Joe Rogan have "messages"? I thought his whole thing was
         | to be a neutral place for interesting conversations.
         | 
         | If he's trying to deliver specific messages now, that would
         | certainly affect who wants to listen to him.
        
       | tehalex wrote:
       | I have no interested in listening and I've thought about
       | canceling spotify for how hard they push the podcast with no way
       | to hide it.
        
       | mastrsushi wrote:
       | "Mickey Mouse Data Analytics: The article"
        
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