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Welcome to the Free Cities podcast.

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My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation.

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Hello and welcome to this episode number 140 of the Free Cities podcast.

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Today's show is, guess what, sponsored as always by our most amazing supporters and the purveyors

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of the best luxury freedom-oriented communities in Latin America. That's right, Veritas Village

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Coronado in Panama. And yes, I'm specifying their Coronado Village because they've just

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announced a new community in Panama and that's the Cherokee Veritas Village. Only a few minutes

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drive from the Costa Rica border this time. Same setup, solar powered homes, energy independence

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close to nature and also amenities and full of freedom lovers just like you. This location has

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a new hospital that's just seven minutes away and an international airport within 30 minutes.

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You're living in the tranquility of nature with all the modern conveniences just around the corner.

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www.ecovillages.life forward slash free cities for more info on their Coronado development.

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That's Veritas Village Coronado.

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You'll have to send them a message through that page if you're interested in the new Cherokee Village.

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It's brand new and hot off the presses and they're just offering it out to their loyal customers currently.

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and of course you guys. Right, next thing on the agenda, it's going to be about my subscribers

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and this is not just another ad read this week, it's actually highly relevant to today's show

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because this show is about the distribution of ideas and how creative people who like doing that

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kind of stuff can fund their work. This is a subject that is very close to my heart, I'm someone

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who began working in the analogue media many, many years ago, and I've watched the complete

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transition to the digital attention economy during my lifetime. I've always felt that creatives have

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ended up with a terrible deal during this process, and the current state of the online world of

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content has basically trended towards a model that incentivises publishers to do whatever they can

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to obtain free content from creators whilst unscrupulously selling their clients personal

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data to the highest bidder and offering them very little in return the big game in the attention

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economy is grab people's attention and keep them there and monetize them and it's a really really

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insidious system so many thanks cb bullish mike matthias cousin really dovidas christopher

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Albany's. I fully appreciate your generosity in choosing to subscribe to this podcast on the

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Fountain app and thank you for being part of the solution as I see it. And please, if you're a

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regular listener to this show, please think about hitting the subscribe button here on Fountain.

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It's only six bucks a month and this gives you early access to episodes, bonus episodes,

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which are not freely available to anyone else and a guaranteed readout of your comments in this

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intro if you choose to do so and that's only actually happened once subscribers tend to be

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quite quiet people by the sounds of it but also you just get the general good vibes that you'll

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feel knowing you're supporting a show dedicated to promoting free cities freedom tech and liberty

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in general what's not to like there right today's guest it's nick malster he's a former ad man

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who basically burnt the candle at both ends got out and went on to co-found the hugely popular

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podcasting app fountain which is where i'm hosting my podcast right now and no they didn't pay me to

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do this uh if you're listening to this podcast on fountain well done you're also part of the

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solution many thanks if you're not well fountain is a podcasting and music app which has bitcoin

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and Noster integration and is focused on what's called the value for value version of media

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consumption. This means you can easily pay creators directly for their content using Bitcoin

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and fiat currencies if you so choose to in the form of subscriptions, boosts and what's most

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famously about value for value streaming payments minute by minute in Bitcoin as you listen to

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content. In a nutshell, you're paying directly for your content rather than getting your content free

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and then hoping that the creator can generate his or her income elsewhere, normally through

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advertising. Anyway, here's a quick lowdown on the episode from Fountain's episode summary,

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key topics, co-working spaces and the changing nature of work, a critique of Gary's economics

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and his popular appeal the journey to founding fountain and its evolution the attention economy

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and monetization of content value for value versus traditional advertising the potential of

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for content ownership and distribution and the future of content creation the role of community

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and subscriptions yes that's what there is and yes there's a gary's economics rant in there

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mainly from me it has to be said and just in case you've fallen for Gary's economics

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may I point you in the direction of what I'm going to call Ben's economics that's Ben Gunn

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to be precise he's he's the thinking man's Gary's economics start with episode number 97 of this

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podcast then jump to 136 and 137 for the complete brain reset in economics and thank me later right

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time to lock yourself in that we work meeting room that you love so dearly for the next hour

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and a half really lock the door look busy so no one disturbs you whilst you sit back relax

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and enjoy my conversation with nick malster

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it's worth actually i think starting on that it's a bit of a moot point but

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um we're in a kind of we work type what is we work is it it's actually called work.life

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so it's like a similar thing yeah and like i don't come to london much anymore and i when i lived in

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london london was like you know it was the london of the 90s noughties uh no co-workers co-workers

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spaces wasn't a thing none of this stuff was a thing but now it's massive huge and in fact

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i've done three interviews so far um this week and they've all been in these kind of places

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and um it's it's bizarre it's weird it's like um it's a whole new way of working it's all i mean

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like there's people sitting out like these are public bits right this is we're in a private bit

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now so you kind of your offices are in here but you also have the option to rent out little rooms

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for meetings and stuff but you've got an office somewhere as well have you we've got yeah we've

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got a little glass box upstairs yeah so everyone can see in yeah how is that weird yeah i mean

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these these these places are all the same um because we were in a we uh we worked before

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over in shoreditch and yeah they're all exactly the same um interestingly enough actually our old

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office there was actually another glass box next to ours and the lady inside she put up all this

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opaque covering on the glass walls in between us and we were wondering what's going on in there and

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we realized that she was actually sleeping in there she she'd got like a reclining chair she

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was doing kind of micro needling beauty treatments or something and she was just sleeping in there

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overnight that's bizarre no it is a bit weird but it is very um modern what's the generation that

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that you find working in here is it's like i guess it's millennials millennials onwards

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yeah and it's and it's totally acceptable now isn't it people people have no problem with

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literally having a meeting on a,

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on a couple of,

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it's like,

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it's like being in Starbucks and having,

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doing a proper business meeting and stuff Yeah Bizarre So why didn you get an office out in the countryside somewhere Why didn you just rent a nice place in I don know the Cotswold

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I don't know.

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They're probably expensive.

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I have no idea.

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But it must be pretty expensive.

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We were right in Soho.

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It's the centre of what used to be the media district.

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I don't know what it still is now, is it?

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Yeah, I think it's just about, yeah.

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Yeah, I think if we did it again, we maybe would do that.

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I live just slightly outside London so I try and work from home as much as I can

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I hate coming in really I cycle in it as well which is just manic it's crazy

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but what's the thought process in start having a startup and then having an office in Soho

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I think it's just kind of in between all of us really so it's kind of easy and you know if you

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want to come here on the weekend it's nice because you can meet friends in town then you can also go

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to the office beforehand it's kind of it fits into your life a bit better so it does it does

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pay to still be in this world of like a digital communication and and zoom and all this kind of

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stuff it does pay to still be able to meet someone in real life or not i mean your business is all

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online right pretty much i mean most of the people i speak to are in the us so yeah i mean you're

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actually the thing one of the first people to come into the office ever yeah well i mean i i

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It's not like coming into the office, though, isn't it?

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It's not how you get to meet everyone and stuff.

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It's like I get to meet a bunch of strangers.

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And there was a full-on board meeting going on next door.

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I'm just looking in.

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They could be talking about super important, like, I don't know,

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something really private and important.

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And I can literally just look in at them all.

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Yeah.

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I could see what one of the girls was looking at on her phone under the table.

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I don't know whether that's a good idea in business, is it?

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I think it's not down to the preference of the people who work here.

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It's the owners who want to pack as many people as possible into the smallest space possible and get as much money out of us as possible.

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So it's a function of the fiat monetary system.

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I think you'll find it is, yeah.

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Without going straight to the point there.

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Talking of the fiat monetary system, I wanted to ask your opinion on something.

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I mentioned this before we started talking.

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But yesterday I was interviewing a guy who runs a gold company and he mentioned Gary's economics.

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Right. Now, prior to last night, when I got back to my hotel, all I knew about Gary's economics was that one clip of him talking about Bitcoin, which he doesn't understand.

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He had no understanding of Bitcoin.

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So by default, then, I just thought, well, probably most of what else he's speaking about is bullshit as well.

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So I didn't really give him the time and day, but this guy mentioned him and mentioned that he's really popular, especially amongst youngsters, millennials onwards.

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you know so i did a bit of looking and the first video i came across was him talking about why how

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why houses are expensive i saw that right now he what was really disturbing about gary in gary's

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economics is that he's very um forthright he he says he says things very authoritatively

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but he and but he's completely hypocritical about what he says so he was saying about houses he said

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Like what normal economists do is they just boil it down to something really simple, like we need more supply.

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There's not enough supply of them.

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But it's not true.

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And then he went into this long tirade about why house prices have gone up.

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That started with him saying, you know, in COVID, I bought gold because I knew the price of gold was going to go up.

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And everything's going up.

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It's not just houses.

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Everything's going up and people can't see this, that everything's going up.

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And I'm thinking, brilliant.

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you know he's gonna he's gonna start talking about the government and central banking soon and and

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printing money and but no he stopped at it's the rich it's the rich buying everything it's the rich

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buying assets he never stopped to take it back that another stage to how come the rich got so

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much money during covid for example what was the what's the mechanism for that money coming and then

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When you look a bit deeper, it's like, dude, this guy's a full on socialist.

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Yeah.

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He's actually like kind of, there's a funny program.

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When I was a kid, you probably don't know.

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It was called Citizen Smith.

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Have you ever heard of this?

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I haven't.

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It was a BBC sitcom about this socialist guy called, oh, fuck.

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I can't remember his name.

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He lived in Tooting and he was like, his catchphrase was power to the people.

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And he was just an idiotic socialist Londoner who was trying to get,

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bring tooting out of oppression and stuff.

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And it was pretty funny, but it would never happen now.

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They would never allow it.

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But he's just like that.

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He's like the working man's Marxist who basically says it's all the rich's fault.

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And the answer is to tax the rich.

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So the answer is the government needs to be bigger, harder, stronger.

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More interventionist.

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Yes.

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like but do you know what the saddest thing was and i'd like you're in i'd like your opinion on

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this that video you're talking about it was on social media like one one million plus views on

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twitter or whatever and underneath i thought right let's go to the comments then let's see

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let's see how everyone's fighting their corner down there and it was so depressing because it

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was mainly it was half and half it was half people saying oh gary you're amazing it's so true and the

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other half was just idiotic bitcoiners not saying just just trying to kind of gotcha him and obviously

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he didn't give up he didn't care he's not going to listen to any of that stuff i mean what's what's

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going on man like how did that guy it makes me think he's a plant or something it really does

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that's what people think i know not me i would say no but then after watching that i'm thinking

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look this guy's obviously getting boosted because he's basically and could he make even easily

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imagine a government department saying hey look this guy's seat kind of basically on our team let's

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get him out there let's push him bigger government more interventionism taxing the rich and all you

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i think i think he's just playing up to popular opinion amongst millennials and so the new

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generation because everyone likes to have an enemy everyone wants to point at the rich and say hey it's

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your fault um and you know that's that's what people want to hear like they want to they want

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to point the finger at someone and i think particularly where these where these videos

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travel on youtube they pick up on these sort of you know sort of shock headlines that he kind of

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creates uh he plays people against each other and it creates tension it creates arguments it

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makes the youtube comments go on fire and then the video goes even further but you said you read his

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book right i listened i actually listened to his audio earlier this year before i even knew who he

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was and you thought it was quite good well i was entertained by it i i find all that stuff

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fascinating you know like inside the life of like the the financial world like particularly people

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who have come out of it the other side and have an interesting story to tell which he does um so

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but his book's not about monetary policy and stuff it's not what his life was it's about the the

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lifestyle of being a trader in the city and he was uh yeah he was he was trading currencies and

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And I think he was Citibank's top trader globally for a short period.

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Which I did a bit of research on that as well.

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I was telling people to say that's bullshit as well.

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I don't know.

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But I mean, you know.

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But then you discovered that actually you looked into what he's actually saying about economics.

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He didn't mention macroeconomics once in the book, really.

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He didn't talk about Bitcoin at all.

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There was really nothing controversial in there.

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It was really just entertainment.

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There were some very interesting characters that come up in the book.

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And yeah, it was a good listen.

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But then I came back and I saw these videos of him talking about Bitcoin, saying it had no value and whatsoever.

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So at that point, I kind of felt a little bit, you know, stupid for enjoying his book because I'm like, this guy actually, you know, is maybe not all that great.

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Well, you can be fascinated with the life of a trader.

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I am.

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I think, you know, like Wall Street, the film and all that kind of bye, bye, bye, sell, sell, sell.

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it is amazing and fascinating and especially if you i think if you're a bloke it really taps into

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some primordial urges to to sort of compete and make money and do better and and you know i think

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you know i would have i could have done that job i think i just never ended up in that situation

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and i you know like a lot of people um of the a lot of bitcoin as i know there was a point in the

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last 10 or so years where they looked at trading because you you start wondering about economics

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you start wondering about prices of things you start and you soon realize trading is something

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you need to learn over a very very long period of time and if you don't have the right temperament

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for it which I don't I can't sit on a losing trade for days I can't do that I just gotta get out I've

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got it you know it doesn't suit my personality but I do find that fascinating and yeah I'm just

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really disappointed that he's he was so well liked and yeah he he's like it's almost like

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he one step away from realizing it true what he says all that stuff about asset prices going up and the reason is because rich people are buying them That is true But he just stops there and says right the rich are the evil ones

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which is basically the same as Karl Marx.

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Karl Marx did the same thing and ended up, you know,

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Marxism ends up annihilating millions of people later down the line.

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I don't know whether that could happen now.

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Yeah, when he talks about Bitcoin as well,

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I mean, there's so many people out there like him

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which fall back to that argument of, you know, Bitcoin is not real.

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I can't touch it like I can touch my gold, you know.

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And I just think that I hear these arguments and it just makes me furious

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because they just don't understand it.

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And a similar argument is taking place right now about Rachel Reeves,

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about whether she should sell the Bank of England's Bitcoin reserves.

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I think we've got something like 6,000 Bitcoin in reserve,

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which have been confiscated.

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And she's obviously in a very deep fiscal hole at the moment

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and needs to get out of it.

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And people are writing all that.

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I think the Bitcoin Policy Institute have written all these open letters to Rachel Reeves saying, don't be the chancellor that sold the Bitcoin.

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You know, don't be Gordon Brown who sold the gold.

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Like you'll go down in history as the chancellor that sold the Bitcoin.

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It's interesting.

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I don't know.

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I mean, this current government we have is atrocious.

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It's such a low value set of people.

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It's unbelievable that it's an absolute symbol of how effed up the whole system is that the people that now rise to the top are kind of like the worst.

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They really are the worst.

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And we're going through that stage in the cycle where we're almost at the extremes.

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So now, you know, like it's either a strong man to fix.

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It's either fascism or communism.

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It's like it's either it's one or the other.

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We're kind of edging towards that thing.

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And then there's all these people in the middle, mostly who don't really think about it.

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But the ones that do unfortunately fall into the Gary's economics trap, which is, yeah, it's the rich.

250
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I'm a victim here of the rich.

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And then, you know, I don't know.

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I find it bizarre.

253
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Gary, because Gary's obviously rich, I think.

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And so he knows he earned his money.

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he knows that he's he's burnt his money and he he i i don't know i would it'd be interesting to see

256
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whether he would back that the kind of things he advocates for in reality if i mean i would imagine

257
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he wouldn't i think he's a classic example in a way of what we call a champagne socialist yeah

258
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who who basically wants to predict wants to project the fact that he cares but when he actually came

259
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to it he'd be on the other side of the fence he wouldn't be he wouldn't be one of the people that

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kind of like at all the same as everyone else i don't know i mean he's he's in a very conflicted

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position because he's trying to he's trying to push a very purpose-driven narrative and cause

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but he's also trying to monetize his youtube channel and there's a book and yeah and sell

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a book so there's there's conflicts of interest there i don't mind that i suppose like i i don't

264
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I really don't care.

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I don't want people to make money.

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I want him to live his best life.

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I really do.

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I think, though, that what I really wanted to ask him as well,

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because he was talking about COVID and he said,

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I bought gold at the beginning of COVID,

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which was obviously a good idea.

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Everyone who's anyone in our world knows that when the government,

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when the printer goes on and the government starts giving out free money,

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asset prices go up.

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We know that.

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It's not the trade of the century to buy gold at that point or Bitcoin or real estate or Rolexes or whatever the hell you want.

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But I wanted to know, he was banging on about that.

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Did he tell anyone to buy gold?

279
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Like, does he actually care?

280
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Does he tell his listeners, hey, dude, come on, asset prices are about to rise?

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Or does he just say it's the richest fault.

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We need to take money away from them because they're basically doing what I'm doing, which is nothing wrong with you.

283
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we're all playing the same game here i think you and me want a different game gary wants the same

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game he wants the game to continue he just wants the government to take money off the winners

285
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and give it to the losers which is socialism well i mean you know let's say that doesn't happen

286
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really if he's going out on his youtube channel telling people to buy gold he's just basically

287
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saying just use the same tactics as the rich have used to get their money you know if we can't beat

288
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them join them exactly yeah i know i don't know why he yeah you're right he'll end up like most

289
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socialists actually in a world of conflicting and ideas that don't make sense and you have to either

290
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you have to be a champagne socialist at that point you have to be the person that secretly

291
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isn't the socialist whereas on the face value is i don't know i i just i don't know i i went down

292
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the gary rabbit hole last night when i got back in because i thought i better check this out

293
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because i i hadn't given him the time of day i'd given him 10 minutes i saw him talk about bitcoin

294
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and completely and basically lump all cryptocurrency coins and bitcoin in the same basket which is

295
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mistake number one right off the bat and then say some absolutely idiotic things and i was like oh

296
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god you don't understand cryptography you don't understand decentralized money you don't actually

297
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understand money by the sounds of it right okay no point in really carrying on here but but but i

298
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think probably yeah he's a relatively important person to watch in case that catches on that idea

299
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that it's the richest fault because that's just one very small facet of the diamond it's not their

300
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fault they're just doing what they're doing you know prices are going up because people are buying

301
00:24:38,582 --> 00:24:43,582
things with money that they're getting where they're getting the money from that's the thing

302
00:24:43,582 --> 00:24:48,763
that gary doesn't really want to go talk about yeah like you can earn money you can get free

303
00:24:48,763 --> 00:24:53,182
money from the government you can get money from central banks you can sell bonds you know he's not

304
00:24:53,182 --> 00:24:56,842
he's not really going there as far as i could tell i looked through a few of his videos but anyway

305
00:24:56,842 --> 00:25:03,722
i think we're giving him too much oxygen at the moment anyway but it's worth mentioning so um nick

306
00:25:03,722 --> 00:25:08,023
I want to ask you about how you ended up here because you,

307
00:25:08,142 --> 00:25:10,882
I think you co-founded Fountain.

308
00:25:11,482 --> 00:25:11,783
Yeah.

309
00:25:12,162 --> 00:25:15,662
This is a five, four or five years ago, four years ago.

310
00:25:15,803 --> 00:25:16,043
Right.

311
00:25:16,142 --> 00:25:23,602
I was a, I was a, I was, I was, I joined Fountain probably not too long after you started it.

312
00:25:24,082 --> 00:25:27,842
I think I told you this once on a call that I liked it.

313
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I liked the concept.

314
00:25:29,322 --> 00:25:30,202
I liked the idea.

315
00:25:30,202 --> 00:25:37,342
um and then it it just seemed like i would never be able to monetize what i'm doing through it

316
00:25:37,342 --> 00:25:43,002
because it's too early i think probably but but we can come back to that but basically for everyone

317
00:25:43,002 --> 00:25:49,942
listening fountains that actually the platform i now host the podcast on but it's a um podcasting

318
00:25:49,942 --> 00:25:55,763
app essentially which allows micropayments of bitcoin and it's now integrated with

319
00:25:55,763 --> 00:26:03,642
Noster which I talk about a lot on this podcast as well which is another protocol which people

320
00:26:03,642 --> 00:26:09,462
are using to have direct interactions with each other currently mainly being used as a social

321
00:26:09,462 --> 00:26:15,462
network but but really new apps and new applications popping up all the time why don't you

322
00:26:15,462 --> 00:26:21,622
start by saying where how you started where like what's been your trajectory to this point because

323
00:26:21,622 --> 00:26:26,982
that's quite a weird business to get into yeah yeah i mean well when when we started the business

324
00:26:26,982 --> 00:26:35,202
in 2021 um i didn't know about bitcoin really it didn't start as a bitcoin company um it was

325
00:26:35,202 --> 00:26:41,142
me and my co-founder oscar who i've known since school we were just talking about ideas in lockdown

326
00:26:41,142 --> 00:26:46,763
at the time i was working in the corporate world i was working at nike but i was spending most of

327
00:26:46,763 --> 00:26:51,502
my time dreaming about what i was going to do next because i was just a bit bored of it um

328
00:26:51,502 --> 00:26:57,422
what were you doing at nike so i was doing nike it's nike is it yeah jesus i've been saying it

329
00:26:57,422 --> 00:27:04,082
wrong my whole life yeah no it's it's named after the greek goddess of victory nike yeah jesus there

330
00:27:04,082 --> 00:27:08,523
are so many they have not made a public attempt at correcting that amongst people yeah well i think

331
00:27:08,523 --> 00:27:13,642
a lot of people in the uk particularly call it nike just because that's phonetically that's how

332
00:27:13,642 --> 00:27:20,482
it reads um but it is nike what were you doing at nike then whoops so i was doing brand marketing

333
00:27:20,482 --> 00:27:27,043
so uh whenever we had a new product launch you know i was working a lot in in football so it was

334
00:27:27,043 --> 00:27:32,402
generally football boots or you know club kits when we had a new launch we'd work on the creative

335
00:27:32,402 --> 00:27:39,122
and the rollout for the launch um you know which was it was fun particularly when i was actually

336
00:27:39,122 --> 00:27:45,783
in the office because i got to go traveling a lot i got to you know go visit different football clubs

337
00:27:45,783 --> 00:27:48,142
to go on shoots with athletes.

338
00:27:48,142 --> 00:27:49,162
I'm a Chelsea fan.

339
00:27:49,162 --> 00:27:50,422
One of our clubs was Chelsea,

340
00:27:50,422 --> 00:27:52,543
so I spent a lot of time doing shoots with Chelsea,

341
00:27:52,543 --> 00:27:53,803
which was fun.

342
00:27:53,803 --> 00:27:55,563
I was just hanging out in the car park

343
00:27:55,563 --> 00:27:57,162
trying to harass Ashley Cole

344
00:27:57,162 --> 00:27:59,043
and any other kind of Chelsea celebrities

345
00:27:59,043 --> 00:28:01,303
that walked through until I got kicked out.

346
00:28:01,303 --> 00:28:13,184
But yeah it was fun for a while And then before that I was working in advertising So yeah when I left university in 2012 I was in advertising for maybe six years

347
00:28:13,184 --> 00:28:15,944
working in creative agencies, which was a lot of fun.

348
00:28:16,004 --> 00:28:18,604
It kind of suited my lifestyle at the time, really.

349
00:28:18,744 --> 00:28:20,464
I was kind of work hard, play hard.

350
00:28:21,604 --> 00:28:23,784
I think it ended up being, you know,

351
00:28:24,724 --> 00:28:27,664
I worked harder and played even harder, you know.

352
00:28:27,664 --> 00:28:30,584
I think that's kind of where I ended up falling out of that.

353
00:28:30,584 --> 00:28:36,804
um so in 2018 i was just just fully burnt out i was traveling back and forth to the u.s so much i

354
00:28:36,804 --> 00:28:42,144
was doing 18 hour days trying to work across different time zones at nike this was before

355
00:28:42,144 --> 00:28:47,364
nike this was in the agency i was working in um so my previous client was adidas so i've always

356
00:28:47,364 --> 00:28:53,924
been in the sort of sportswear sports world so yeah i was just i was just i just burnt out and

357
00:28:53,924 --> 00:28:59,964
i took i got a doctor's note i was off work for a month and in that month i decided you know what

358
00:28:59,964 --> 00:29:02,084
I'm not going to go to another agency.

359
00:29:02,264 --> 00:29:03,424
I'm not going to go back to my job.

360
00:29:03,484 --> 00:29:04,904
I want to go into the corporate world.

361
00:29:04,984 --> 00:29:06,044
I want to have a nine to five.

362
00:29:06,144 --> 00:29:09,624
I want to just draw the line between work and life a bit better.

363
00:29:09,864 --> 00:29:10,004
Really?

364
00:29:10,564 --> 00:29:11,324
Sorry to butt in.

365
00:29:11,504 --> 00:29:14,264
Normally at that point, people say something different.

366
00:29:14,344 --> 00:29:16,544
It's like, I want to go traveling or I want to get the hell out of here.

367
00:29:16,644 --> 00:29:17,004
I don't want to.

368
00:29:17,024 --> 00:29:18,024
Yeah, I never did that.

369
00:29:18,424 --> 00:29:21,224
I kind of, I regret that now because now I've got a kid and I'm married.

370
00:29:21,324 --> 00:29:22,624
So it's harder for me to do that.

371
00:29:23,024 --> 00:29:23,164
Right.

372
00:29:23,604 --> 00:29:27,304
But your fallback place, which is interesting really,

373
00:29:27,304 --> 00:29:30,664
because I wouldn't have considered the corporate world

374
00:29:30,664 --> 00:29:33,204
a fallback from the advertising world.

375
00:29:33,924 --> 00:29:34,824
And probably, it obviously is.

376
00:29:34,824 --> 00:29:39,204
I think a fallback in a sense that there was more boundaries,

377
00:29:39,564 --> 00:29:41,204
you know, because I was always in client services,

378
00:29:41,344 --> 00:29:42,824
account management in the agency world.

379
00:29:42,904 --> 00:29:45,644
So I was always like the first one in the office, last one out.

380
00:29:46,304 --> 00:29:49,604
I was taking a lot of the stress and the pressure

381
00:29:49,604 --> 00:29:51,604
of being in the sort of client agency relationship.

382
00:29:51,864 --> 00:29:53,664
Do you have to do a lot of the drinking and partying?

383
00:29:53,824 --> 00:29:57,104
Yeah, and I'm also like, it was my job to go out

384
00:29:57,104 --> 00:30:02,404
and win new business to grow the account um so a lot of commercial pressure as well as like the

385
00:30:02,404 --> 00:30:07,904
pressure of making sure that the work is good um and i'm quite a conscientious person so i just let

386
00:30:07,904 --> 00:30:12,884
that get to me um so i got to the point when i was like you know what i want to try something

387
00:30:12,884 --> 00:30:16,384
different i want to just have a bit more of a segmented life when i can come into the office

388
00:30:16,384 --> 00:30:21,044
at nine leave at five i don't have to i'm not really responsible for growing the business and

389
00:30:21,044 --> 00:30:25,804
i don't need to because nike is a multi-billion dollar company like no one's really going to

390
00:30:25,804 --> 00:30:33,164
notice if i don't do a good job um you that's the that's the route down a lot of the fiat path

391
00:30:33,164 --> 00:30:37,424
isn't it it's like now there's that's a bit of a meme these days go in and do the least amount of

392
00:30:37,424 --> 00:30:43,824
work you can in your job and like yeah i wouldn't say yeah for me it wasn't doing the least amount

393
00:30:43,824 --> 00:30:50,124
of work it was just like trying to take on the a slightly smaller amount of responsibility and

394
00:30:50,124 --> 00:30:56,684
personal responsibility about the outcomes of my work um so i was at nike for i think just over

395
00:30:56,684 --> 00:31:02,384
three years and half of that time was in lockdown and like i said most of that time in lockdown i

396
00:31:02,384 --> 00:31:06,604
was thinking about what am i going to do after this because i've always wanted to have my own

397
00:31:06,604 --> 00:31:10,504
business i've always wanted to have that freedom just to be able to be like right what are we going

398
00:31:10,504 --> 00:31:15,944
to do today what are we going to build um i've got an idea let's go um which you can't do at nike

399
00:31:15,944 --> 00:31:23,384
you can't do in agencies so um yeah so the back to your first question when when fountain started

400
00:31:23,384 --> 00:31:30,064
yeah i don't it wasn't even a podcast app to begin with it was a social audio sharing app

401
00:31:30,064 --> 00:31:37,264
and the idea being that you can upload clips or you can create clips of stuff and share them easily

402
00:31:37,264 --> 00:31:42,524
with other people we quickly realized that it wasn't going to take off because you have to

403
00:31:42,524 --> 00:31:47,364
convince people who are creating content to come onto your platform and trust you even though you

404
00:31:47,364 --> 00:31:53,144
have nobody there so we we moved away from that and we just decided actually we both are really

405
00:31:53,144 --> 00:31:58,424
into podcasts why did you have the found why was that called fountain then i thought because i

406
00:31:58,424 --> 00:32:04,084
thought that was quite a good name for a it's like fountain of content yeah it's kind of a i think

407
00:32:04,084 --> 00:32:09,784
it's kind of a dual meaning really the first one is like fountain of wisdom or fountain of knowledge

408
00:32:09,784 --> 00:32:19,704
You know, we wanted to use the ability to create clips and, you know, take this, you know, what is very long form content and put it into short form.

409
00:32:19,824 --> 00:32:26,764
So it's more discoverable, more searchable, more shareable as a way of just kind of creating like a library for the stuff you can learn.

410
00:32:27,424 --> 00:32:32,904
And then the other meaning was if you think about how a fountain works, it's kind of like a circular system.

411
00:32:32,904 --> 00:32:35,344
Like the water comes out the top, it goes back through the bottom.

412
00:32:35,344 --> 00:32:41,304
and that's very much how the money flows on fountain because as a listener yeah or let's say

413
00:32:41,304 --> 00:32:46,864
one of the things we do on fountain is you can actually earn money by listening to podcasts for

414
00:32:46,864 --> 00:32:51,784
us it's kind of like a bit of a loyalty system in a way whereby if you if you keep listening on

415
00:32:51,784 --> 00:32:56,724
fountain you get some reward from it and we kind of reward your attention in the way that other

416
00:32:56,724 --> 00:33:02,264
platforms maybe do not um so the money you earn you can either keep it you can withdraw it to a

417
00:33:02,264 --> 00:33:07,044
wallet or you can send it back to a podcaster and the money flows and the money that the podcaster

418
00:33:07,044 --> 00:33:11,664
gets they are also using the app as a listener and they can support a podcast so really money is

419
00:33:11,664 --> 00:33:16,544
flowing all over the place and it kind of works in a circular system in the same way fountain does

420
00:33:16,544 --> 00:33:23,324
how did the so when you realized the company wasn't going to work how did you did you then

421
00:33:23,324 --> 00:33:27,144
at that point did you discover bitcoin and then realize you could integrate it into it or were

422
00:33:27,144 --> 00:33:32,304
already into that kind of stuff uh oscar was oscar's been into to bitcoin since relatively

423
00:33:32,304 --> 00:33:37,704
early on i remember him saying to me in like 2016 like you should get some bitcoin he's an old mate

424
00:33:37,704 --> 00:33:43,544
of yours is he yeah not from nike or anything we went to school together oh cool yeah um so he he

425
00:33:43,544 --> 00:33:47,964
was always into bitcoin and then yeah when we because he'd also he'd uh he had a previous

426
00:33:47,964 --> 00:33:54,224
company before this which he'd he'd sold um and was looking for a new challenge so we were meeting

427
00:33:54,224 --> 00:33:59,724
up and working on this kind of social sharing audio app and this was only after a few months

428
00:33:59,724 --> 00:34:04,564
we realized that actually we're probably best to focus off on focus on podcasts because there's an

429
00:34:04,564 --> 00:34:09,064
existing library of content that we can pull in through rss suddenly we have four million podcasts

430
00:34:09,064 --> 00:34:13,704
on the app and that clipping tool that we built we can apply to podcasts and you can easily clip

431
00:34:13,704 --> 00:34:19,824
a podcast so that's kind of where it started i think it wasn't until yeah there's probably a

432
00:34:19,824 --> 00:34:25,644
couple of more months before we actually launched the app publicly and in that time that's when we

433
00:34:25,644 --> 00:34:31,564
saw what was happening with adam curry and podcasting 2.0 and the whole specification for

434
00:34:31,564 --> 00:34:35,964
open open podcasting being better defined and having all these new features like the lightning

435
00:34:35,964 --> 00:34:42,864
payments being integrated so we we launched with that um and and so yeah i really quickly had to go

436
00:34:42,864 --> 00:34:48,444
on a crash course of bitcoin to figure out what it all was was that 2020 this is i think it was 2021

437
00:34:48,444 --> 00:34:54,864
on yeah a lot of people got into it during the pandemic yeah yeah yeah yeah that must have been

438
00:34:54,864 --> 00:34:58,964
fun times did it how did it affect you psychologically i know a lot of people that

439
00:34:58,964 --> 00:35:04,304
went a little bit crazy when they well you know when when when you have to go straight deep in

440
00:35:04,304 --> 00:35:10,784
one touch point and then down the rabbit hole i think what was really interesting for me is that i

441
00:35:10,784 --> 00:35:16,064
the my first experiences with bitcoin were thinking more practically about how it can be

442
00:35:16,064 --> 00:35:22,044
used as a medium of exchange in an app so i wasn't i wasn't like i wasn't sold in by a friend on

443
00:35:22,044 --> 00:35:27,184
the monetary philosophy behind it you know the store of value stuff like i kind of got to that

444
00:35:27,184 --> 00:35:33,204
later oscar gave me a copy of the bitcoin standard i read that later but first we were having

445
00:35:33,204 --> 00:35:38,544
conversations about how do these payment works how how come how can we split the payments how can we

446
00:35:38,544 --> 00:35:44,204
get the right metadata in the payments so that we can see who sent it what content they sent it to

447
00:35:44,204 --> 00:35:51,504
all the technical stuff that's pretty good and it i mean you you hit you you mentioned the word

448
00:35:51,504 --> 00:35:59,664
attention earlier and what i i think a lot of people are just starting to realize is that

449
00:35:59,664 --> 00:36:06,904
the whole internet that they now use on a daily basis is based around your attention it's totally

450
00:36:06,904 --> 00:36:13,604
it's like and in not in a good way not in it at all in a good way in fact it's it's this kind of

451
00:36:13,604 --> 00:36:22,504
self-perpetuating terrible idea that the internet vies for your attention when it gets it it works

452
00:36:22,504 --> 00:36:26,764
out how to do it more and it gets it more and more and more and that's how the whole economy

453
00:36:26,764 --> 00:36:34,244
is set up grab your attention monetize it with a an advertiser or whoever sell you something and

454
00:36:34,244 --> 00:36:39,864
then you know this is how it works and as a result now apps are all evolving in the same direction

455
00:36:39,864 --> 00:36:45,864
which is keep you sat there looking at it which is terrible i like and i mean i think it's sad

456
00:36:45,864 --> 00:36:49,784
that you said earlier that i might be the first person that actually come to visit you in real

457
00:36:49,784 --> 00:36:55,244
life and there's a reason why i do that because i and there's a reason why it's i do the podcast

458
00:36:55,244 --> 00:37:00,364
in real life as well i think things like this are all really important and sitting on a screen is

459
00:37:00,364 --> 00:37:06,784
is not it's useful sometimes but it's not good for you and i've got kids now so i know it's not

460
00:37:06,784 --> 00:37:11,584
good for them you can see when they're doing that and when they're not yet we've fallen into this

461
00:37:11,584 --> 00:37:18,624
world where the world is basically monetizing the internet on on the basis of attention which

462
00:37:18,624 --> 00:37:24,104
obviously is the opposite to what's found in does found in kind of like a trade it's like you listen

463
00:37:24,104 --> 00:37:30,044
to my podcast then you you send me a little bit of bitcoin yeah right yeah i think that

464
00:37:30,005 --> 00:37:35,525
this idea that uh platforms are monetizing people attention people's attention is better understood

465
00:37:35,525 --> 00:37:41,525
than it was in the past um when did the social dilemma come out that documentary a few years ago

466
00:37:41,525 --> 00:37:48,325
like so a lot of people saw that a lot of people instantly recognized that you know the behavior of

467
00:37:48,325 --> 00:37:56,005
apps like facebook and instagram and stuff i still don't think that people see how other things work

468
00:37:56,005 --> 00:38:01,145
in that way though like people don't i think look at youtube and see okay well why am i i mean have

469
00:38:01,145 --> 00:38:06,165
you been on youtube recently are you i don't know if you're a premium youtube subscriber i'm not but

470
00:38:06,165 --> 00:38:11,305
there's so many ads now like if i'm watching a 20 minute video there's probably six different

471
00:38:11,305 --> 00:38:18,465
inserted ad breaks and they're very subtle as well i what i noticed about um twitter the other day was

472
00:38:18,465 --> 00:38:25,265
when i was on the feed and i i clicked on an ad by mistake you know sometimes you your finger

473
00:38:25,265 --> 00:38:34,845
Yeah. Press is too hard. When I started scrolling from that ad, I only got ads like sick. It took me six before I thought, they're only serving me up ads here.

474
00:38:34,845 --> 00:38:42,085
I want to, you know, and I didn't even really know the first one was necessarily an ad because it was someone just talking about something.

475
00:38:42,185 --> 00:38:49,105
And then later on, it's like, hi, guys, get ready with me while I when I'm like, and I was like, oh, God, and you get sucked in.

476
00:38:49,145 --> 00:38:54,645
And then the next thing you know, you say, first thing I do is I go to Starbucks and I get my you like, oh, shit.

477
00:38:55,265 --> 00:38:56,545
I've fallen into the trap here.

478
00:38:56,605 --> 00:38:57,025
I've been,

479
00:38:57,165 --> 00:38:58,305
I've been sold a Starbucks,

480
00:38:58,505 --> 00:38:58,925
you know,

481
00:38:58,925 --> 00:38:59,845
or something like that,

482
00:38:59,905 --> 00:39:00,145
you know,

483
00:39:00,145 --> 00:39:00,365
but,

484
00:39:00,605 --> 00:39:01,205
but,

485
00:39:01,345 --> 00:39:02,025
but yeah,

486
00:39:02,085 --> 00:39:02,285
the,

487
00:39:03,125 --> 00:39:03,725
so,

488
00:39:04,125 --> 00:39:04,425
I mean,

489
00:39:04,465 --> 00:39:06,005
was that something you thought about in the,

490
00:39:06,005 --> 00:39:06,925
in the early days?

491
00:39:07,325 --> 00:39:07,545
Yeah.

492
00:39:07,985 --> 00:39:08,425
Yeah.

493
00:39:08,425 --> 00:39:08,625
Yeah.

494
00:39:08,625 --> 00:39:09,065
Big time.

495
00:39:09,165 --> 00:39:10,925
Because we,

496
00:39:11,165 --> 00:39:12,325
we had to,

497
00:39:12,505 --> 00:39:17,485
we had to start this business and think about what specific problem we were

498
00:39:17,485 --> 00:39:17,865
solving.

499
00:39:18,025 --> 00:39:18,245
Like,

500
00:39:18,305 --> 00:39:20,145
why would a podcaster come to us?

501
00:39:21,085 --> 00:39:23,405
And the best answer we could come up with was,

502
00:39:23,965 --> 00:39:24,305
you know,

503
00:39:24,445 --> 00:39:25,085
podcasters,

504
00:39:25,265 --> 00:39:30,125
don't have any freedom when it comes to how they monetize their podcast if you're of a certain

505
00:39:30,125 --> 00:39:35,505
size and you've got a certain audience you can put ads in there either you know sponsored host

506
00:39:35,505 --> 00:39:40,965
red ads where you manage the relationship with your sponsor or the kind of the dirtier type of

507
00:39:40,965 --> 00:39:45,285
ads that the dynamic ads that you get on kind of youtube where you have no control over what ads

508
00:39:45,285 --> 00:39:50,165
are going in and they're really fucking annoying um and we didn't like that we thought there's got

509
00:39:50,165 --> 00:39:55,725
to be a better way for podcasters to you know take back control of how they're making money again

510
00:39:55,725 --> 00:40:02,085
so that's why we put the sort of the the direct payments in uh as a as a means to solve that but

511
00:40:02,085 --> 00:40:06,785
i think the other thing we've been trying to battle with is like right that solves a real

512
00:40:06,785 --> 00:40:11,405
problem for the podcaster but does it solve a problem for the listener like i don't think

513
00:40:11,405 --> 00:40:15,905
listeners out there are thinking god i really wish there was just an easy way i could send

514
00:40:15,905 --> 00:40:21,545
tim some money you know people people don't want to pay for something that's already free

515
00:40:21,545 --> 00:40:27,805
correct and that's when we kind of get into this whole value for value idea because it can sound

516
00:40:27,805 --> 00:40:33,265
very deep and philosophical at first like this idea of like if you find value in something you

517
00:40:33,265 --> 00:40:39,465
can send some value back but like most people most people probably just won't do that um they

518
00:40:39,465 --> 00:40:44,085
just want to listen to something that's free so that's why we've been thinking more about what

519
00:40:44,085 --> 00:40:49,745
what was what are the incentives for the listener and one of the things that we've launched i will

520
00:40:49,745 --> 00:40:54,885
launch with this new product podcast hosting platform which you're now using is the ability

521
00:40:54,885 --> 00:40:59,645
for podcasters to host their podcast and fountain and actually do an ad free version as well so

522
00:40:59,645 --> 00:41:06,345
people can pay for a version without ads um which i think gets us closer to you know product market

523
00:41:06,345 --> 00:41:11,025
fit of actually what does a listener want like what would what would make a listener send money

524
00:41:11,025 --> 00:41:16,365
to the podcast. That being said, though, there are still a large number of listeners out there who

525
00:41:16,365 --> 00:41:21,605
just, you know, voluntarily will send a payment because they have such a deep connection with the

526
00:41:21,605 --> 00:41:27,005
content and with the podcast host, particularly as well that the smaller podcasts, like the ones who

527
00:41:27,005 --> 00:41:32,945
are independent, they don't employ editors or producers or, you know, script writers or

528
00:41:32,945 --> 00:41:38,265
researchers. They're a one man band. It's probably their side thing. Like it's not their main job.

529
00:41:38,265 --> 00:41:40,565
They're trying to find a way to sustain themselves.

530
00:41:41,005 --> 00:41:44,685
And the listener knows this and the listener wants the content to keep coming.

531
00:41:44,885 --> 00:41:53,005
So the listener has to put some money in the hat, so to speak, to use busker language for the content to keep coming.

532
00:41:53,725 --> 00:41:55,825
And so that has worked to an extent.

533
00:41:55,825 --> 00:42:04,625
And we see that podcasters who really commit to Fountain and decide I'm going to talk about value for value or maybe not in those words,

534
00:42:04,625 --> 00:42:08,825
but I'm going to ask my listeners to support me in every episode and be really consistent about it

535
00:42:08,825 --> 00:42:13,445
and try and find a way to make it fun like you did by reading out the boosts and the comments

536
00:42:13,445 --> 00:42:19,345
at the end of the episode. Those who do that succeed. But I think the other challenge we have

537
00:42:19,345 --> 00:42:26,525
too is that until now, the only means of payment has been with Lightning. And I don't know how

538
00:42:26,525 --> 00:42:31,985
many people are using Lightning wallets these days. I mean, it's a niche within a niche, right?

539
00:42:31,985 --> 00:42:33,565
Bitcoin is niche within the world.

540
00:42:33,745 --> 00:42:35,085
Lightning is niche within Bitcoin.

541
00:42:35,685 --> 00:42:39,085
And then people who want to send a payment with Lightning,

542
00:42:39,285 --> 00:42:40,665
that's a niche within Lightning.

543
00:42:41,185 --> 00:42:43,245
Sorry, a podcast payment.

544
00:42:43,465 --> 00:42:46,905
So we're a few layers down, or we were a few layers down,

545
00:42:46,965 --> 00:42:49,585
and we've been looking at ways to broaden it

546
00:42:49,585 --> 00:42:50,765
and make it more accessible,

547
00:42:51,065 --> 00:42:53,985
which is why you can now send payments not with Lightning,

548
00:42:54,145 --> 00:42:55,125
with card payments as well.

549
00:42:55,125 --> 00:42:56,445
Which I've had a few, actually.

550
00:42:56,525 --> 00:42:58,085
I had two, randomly.

551
00:42:58,765 --> 00:43:00,445
But I don't want them.

552
00:43:00,445 --> 00:43:07,125
no i'm not being funny i don't have to receive them well no but what i mean is i don't i'd want

553
00:43:07,125 --> 00:43:13,585
the bitcoin yeah i would rather the bitcoin and mainly because it's cheaper like um the platform

554
00:43:13,585 --> 00:43:17,965
what's it called a stripe you know there's a percent you know like on a small payment their

555
00:43:17,965 --> 00:43:25,045
percentage charge is quite high and um and and you know it's very interesting to look at because i've

556
00:43:25,045 --> 00:43:30,425
i get i've got both now i get streaming sats and i've got like i say a couple of people have bought

557
00:43:30,425 --> 00:43:35,405
things outright with real money with fiat money yeah and i'm probably not going to do anything

558
00:43:35,405 --> 00:43:38,285
it's probably just going to sit on that app forever and nothing's going to happen to it it

559
00:43:38,285 --> 00:43:41,705
doesn't seem like real money to me it was a real eye-opener to me that i'm thinking

560
00:43:41,705 --> 00:43:49,085
i really do i am really am a hard money advocate yeah it's really happened um what what i was going

561
00:43:49,085 --> 00:43:58,545
to say was um this is my experience of who which listeners do send you money or subscribe or what

562
00:43:58,545 --> 00:44:04,865
it is those people in my case it is those people who who care about what you're doing who kind of

563
00:44:04,865 --> 00:44:11,145
feel a personal connection i'm not sure in my case that could scale necessarily i mean it's probably

564
00:44:11,145 --> 00:44:17,425
a very small percentage of people and i'm you know i i agree that really when i go through my

565
00:44:17,425 --> 00:44:23,665
podcasting app i'm not thinking about boosting people except if i hear say you and me are talking

566
00:44:23,665 --> 00:44:32,565
and you say something really innovative or cool or something all right but but i do i get that urge

567
00:44:32,565 --> 00:44:37,105
when i'm listening oh nice one mate well done you know and you want to send something i just wonder

568
00:44:37,105 --> 00:44:43,065
whether that's a good business model like what how i've always thought that the internet of the future

569
00:44:43,065 --> 00:44:51,225
um should be and obviously that's me thinking it should be a massive network of micro payments

570
00:44:51,225 --> 00:44:57,445
for everything literally seamlessly happening in the background so when you're when you're surfing

571
00:44:57,445 --> 00:45:02,285
the internet without even realizing it if you end up if you're on youtube and you see a bit of

572
00:45:02,285 --> 00:45:10,565
my content i get a quarter of a penny sit in the background seamlessly and it's it's part of yours

573
00:45:10,565 --> 00:45:15,105
you know a bit it's basically the fountain experience scaled up to the whole internet but

574
00:45:15,105 --> 00:45:19,245
I don't know whether it could ever happen because I don't know.

575
00:45:19,705 --> 00:45:27,045
I think the reason it's so difficult is because the incentives are just not aligned.

576
00:45:27,185 --> 00:45:38,845
If you look at YouTube, obviously, like you said, the more time people spend watching stuff on YouTube, the more money that's going to be generated by advertisers for the platform and also for the content creator.

577
00:45:38,845 --> 00:45:45,905
if you think about how that works for the listener like like we said most people don't actually want

578
00:45:45,905 --> 00:45:51,165
to pay for content what's interesting though is that i saw a stat the other day that actually

579
00:45:51,165 --> 00:45:57,105
i think 15 to 20 percent of people in the u.s had actually paid for podcast content in some form

580
00:45:57,105 --> 00:46:02,325
so we say that most people won't but actually that was surprising how because that's how are

581
00:46:02,325 --> 00:46:08,225
how are 15 of people paying for cotton so it could be that someone who has um subscribed to

582
00:46:08,225 --> 00:46:13,985
someone on patreon or they've they've used like um you know like some of the big podcast networks

583
00:46:13,985 --> 00:46:18,825
have these in-app subscriptions for apple podcasts or on spotify people have subscribed there or

584
00:46:18,825 --> 00:46:23,885
people have sent a donation or there's various different ways they could have done that but it

585
00:46:23,885 --> 00:46:27,525
surprised me actually that 15 20 percent it's it's higher than i thought it was going to be

586
00:46:27,525 --> 00:46:30,905
yeah and the reason that listeners

587
00:46:30,905 --> 00:46:32,645
because listeners won't pay

588
00:46:32,645 --> 00:46:33,765
someone has to pay

589
00:46:33,765 --> 00:46:35,265
and that person has to be

590
00:46:35,265 --> 00:46:36,945
or that group has to be the advertiser

591
00:46:36,945 --> 00:46:38,525
because no one else is going to do it

592
00:46:38,525 --> 00:46:40,065
otherwise there's not going to be any money in it

593
00:46:40,065 --> 00:46:41,745
do you think there's a future

594
00:46:41,745 --> 00:46:43,625
in completely ad free

595
00:46:43,625 --> 00:46:45,785
content creation then

596
00:46:45,785 --> 00:46:47,245
I mean at the moment

597
00:46:47,245 --> 00:46:59,840
even I thinking about when I look at Fountain the top the people who are earning the most money through the value for value network like Max you know and ungovernable misfits people like that

598
00:46:59,960 --> 00:47:07,560
Whenever I listen to that, I think, you know, people are donating 100,000 sats, 150,000.

599
00:47:07,700 --> 00:47:09,960
I'm like, every week they get a lot of sats.

600
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:16,740
And like you say, he's built up a really good relationship where people understand that, you know, this is his job and this is it.

601
00:47:16,740 --> 00:47:20,100
But he's also got sponsorship deals as well.

602
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:24,580
I think actually that the best solution,

603
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:26,200
the most likely real world solution,

604
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:28,060
is a combination of those two things.

605
00:47:28,220 --> 00:47:30,840
Like having ads, having value for value,

606
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:32,300
but then also having a subscription.

607
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:36,040
That means you're just not reliant on any one single thing.

608
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,540
The advertising market could dry up completely

609
00:47:38,540 --> 00:47:40,980
and you'd still be okay because you've still got your supporters.

610
00:47:41,780 --> 00:47:43,040
So I think you're right.

611
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:45,320
Subscription is the way.

612
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:53,220
it's it's people are much more likely to continue subscribing rather than every now and then

613
00:47:53,220 --> 00:47:57,840
deciding oh i'm going to send some bitcoin i'm going to send some bitcoin or something yeah

614
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:03,100
but i mean it's interesting though because you know max's podcast on government misfits is

615
00:48:03,100 --> 00:48:07,460
from what i can see it's not a huge podcast with a huge audience it's big enough to get

616
00:48:07,460 --> 00:48:13,220
um some some advertisers which is which is great um but he's also like you said got certain

617
00:48:13,220 --> 00:48:19,600
listeners sending 100,000 sats in one shot just because they want to. So if you think about it

618
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:24,860
like that, maybe this idea does scale. Maybe if you can just get each listener from sending 1,000

619
00:48:24,860 --> 00:48:31,420
sats to sending 50,000, 100,000, that's the way it scales. It's not scaling through the number of

620
00:48:31,420 --> 00:48:36,760
payments, it's scaling through the value of payments. True, but you just, yeah, I mean,

621
00:48:36,760 --> 00:48:41,220
I think the way to win at podcasting probably in the,

622
00:48:41,300 --> 00:48:43,700
in the first instance is to specialize for sure.

623
00:48:44,260 --> 00:48:44,780
Um,

624
00:48:45,180 --> 00:48:47,100
but I think in the end,

625
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:53,560
probably if you were like diary of a CEO and you decided to go value for

626
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:57,540
value and 10% of people decided to support you,

627
00:48:57,720 --> 00:49:00,1000
you just make a lot of money because they're pulling in millions,

628
00:49:01,180 --> 00:49:02,880
millions of listens per episode.

629
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,940
Even if you monetize 1% of that,

630
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:06,300
that's good money.

631
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:14,600
But then that's like, I don't like that model though, because that's the YouTube model, which is you look at YouTube and you think, wow, you can make money on YouTube.

632
00:49:14,740 --> 00:49:16,320
And the answer is no, you can't.

633
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:18,500
0.1% of people can make money on YouTube.

634
00:49:18,720 --> 00:49:21,340
Everyone else gets F all basically.

635
00:49:21,980 --> 00:49:29,160
And I would love to see a system where everyone gets the opportunity to make a bit of money.

636
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,180
Because I think, you know, I have worked in the media my whole life.

637
00:49:33,180 --> 00:49:37,560
and I've worked at lots of different types of media.

638
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:43,1000
And the most fun I'm having is being an independent creator in charge of

639
00:49:43,1000 --> 00:49:48,060
everything where no one tells you what to do and you just do what you do.

640
00:49:48,460 --> 00:49:50,900
There's a degree of that with this podcast,

641
00:49:50,1000 --> 00:49:53,420
because I do work with the free cities foundation.

642
00:49:53,420 --> 00:49:53,720
So,

643
00:49:53,840 --> 00:49:54,440
you know,

644
00:49:54,500 --> 00:49:56,860
content has to be in a certain direction,

645
00:49:56,980 --> 00:49:57,780
but really I think,

646
00:49:57,880 --> 00:49:58,960
you know,

647
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:02,020
freedom and ideas of freedom and free cities,

648
00:50:02,020 --> 00:50:07,400
they overlap with a lot of things that we do and freedom in freedom in the media is one of these

649
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:16,140
things which is what you guys do um but but i i yeah i i it is hard and i don't have any i any

650
00:50:16,140 --> 00:50:22,140
sort of dreams of being a value for value podcaster i'd love it i think it'd be brilliant i would i

651
00:50:22,140 --> 00:50:28,020
would get up every morning to please my subscribers you know really because it's it's the perfect way

652
00:50:28,020 --> 00:50:32,540
to do business because that's how you do business in a lot of other realms in your life if you run

653
00:50:32,540 --> 00:50:38,380
a coffee shop you're not pleasing you know the coffee manufacturer you're pleasing your customer

654
00:50:38,380 --> 00:50:43,120
and your customer comes into the shop it goes great coffee i'm coming here again you're like yay

655
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:49,060
free market is happening here we are you i'm producing something you're buying it this is all

656
00:50:49,060 --> 00:50:55,340
good i do want that in the media i really do i just think maybe it takes a massive psychological

657
00:50:55,340 --> 00:51:03,300
change it does people it does and i think you're right like it's when you have uh a relationship

658
00:51:03,300 --> 00:51:09,680
which is bound by money moving one way and a product is moving the other way it feels good

659
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:15,620
you know it's how we how all other markets work pretty much yet content doesn't work in that way

660
00:51:15,620 --> 00:51:20,780
the listener gets something for free the advertiser gives some money to the content creator

661
00:51:20,780 --> 00:51:27,840
and I think that when yeah when when you have that relationship bound by money it brings you

662
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:33,100
closer it means there's a relationship that's actually there and it's going to last and that

663
00:51:33,100 --> 00:51:38,900
listener will maybe follow you in whatever you do next and I think you know that's what we want we

664
00:51:38,900 --> 00:51:46,220
want anybody you know just to be able to do their own thing host their own podcast you know it could

665
00:51:46,220 --> 00:51:51,020
be about anything there's no one dictating it they can start from an audience of zero and even

666
00:51:51,020 --> 00:51:55,960
if they only get to an audience of i don't know a hundred or a thousand they've got enough there

667
00:51:55,960 --> 00:52:00,580
to sustain them or at least feel like they can see the path to okay the more i put into this

668
00:52:00,580 --> 00:52:06,400
the more i get out of it it's interesting i never thought of that before that the media does work

669
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:13,080
in a funny way but and i'm wondering whether why that happens because i used to work in newspapers

670
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:20,300
when they were still picked up and read and people paid for newspapers you know you paid like 20p to

671
00:52:20,300 --> 00:52:27,100
or 40p or a pound or whatever but there were ads as well in the newspapers so they were buying a

672
00:52:27,100 --> 00:52:31,960
product but you were also subsidizing it with advertisers so yeah i wonder whether this is

673
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:39,960
ever gonna change they'll always be like when will anyone ever see listening to a podcast as

674
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:45,520
a product that they need to buy because i know a lot of people i know another guy trying to monetize

675
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:51,220
content in that same way using like using bitcoin using the lightning network having things behind

676
00:52:51,220 --> 00:52:58,180
paywalls so you know like you if you know but using nostr so that if you buy something you you

677
00:52:58,180 --> 00:53:02,360
kind of own it if you see me so if you buy you're it's like you're buying the right to listen to a

678
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:07,060
bit of content and you'll have that right forever so you can you know the cryptographically you can

679
00:53:07,060 --> 00:53:12,720
always listen to that so you you are it does change the idea a little bit to i am actually

680
00:53:12,720 --> 00:53:21,340
buying something now yeah rather you know yeah i i think that the the the technology that the media

681
00:53:21,340 --> 00:53:25,900
is built on and distributed through has a massive role in dictating what the dynamics of the

682
00:53:25,900 --> 00:53:32,060
marketplace are that come after it because if you think about radio you know a lot of early radio

683
00:53:32,060 --> 00:53:33,940
was public funded, public radio.

684
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:35,680
And it was available in every car,

685
00:53:35,820 --> 00:53:37,060
every radio station everywhere.

686
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:37,1000
It was freely available.

687
00:53:38,740 --> 00:53:40,380
So listeners are never going to pay for that.

688
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:41,480
It was always going to have to be something

689
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:42,740
that was supported by advertising.

690
00:53:43,340 --> 00:53:44,760
And then if you look at the film industry,

691
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,860
films are so incredibly expensive to make.

692
00:53:47,980 --> 00:53:49,760
And yes, there are people that will pay

693
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:51,180
to go to the cinema to watch them.

694
00:53:51,740 --> 00:53:53,260
But is there enough for,

695
00:53:53,700 --> 00:53:55,660
is there enough money to cover the cost of production?

696
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:56,240
Maybe not.

697
00:53:56,300 --> 00:53:57,940
That's why they have to go out and get finances

698
00:53:57,940 --> 00:54:00,400
to put money into the studios to make them happen.

699
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:06,540
and that's you know eventually when film got absolved into netflix and other things where

700
00:54:06,540 --> 00:54:10,800
these big kind of rights and media packages were being sold again that's subsidizing for

701
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,660
the huge cost of making these programs because not enough people are paying the

702
00:54:14,660 --> 00:54:21,360
9.99 a month for netflix to to make the model work so and for podcasting you know it's built

703
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:26,080
an rss it's an open protocol if you have a podcast feed anyone can listen to that feed

704
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:32,920
so it's very very hard to to kind of to paywall something to contain the information that's

705
00:54:32,920 --> 00:54:36,920
already been made free everywhere else i think it goes back to the internet

706
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:45,300
that is the reason i remember when i worked in fleece tree it was completely analog and i went

707
00:54:45,300 --> 00:54:50,620
through that whole process of the media going from analog to digital and it took me ages to

708
00:54:50,620 --> 00:54:57,840
get my head around the idea that a way you might make money is by doing something for free and then

709
00:54:57,840 --> 00:55:06,100
it it paying in in sort of hindsight or in in another way in an indirect way that was i'd never

710
00:55:06,100 --> 00:55:12,259
done that before i i was a jobbing photographer so i did jobs for money i held sold rights to

711
00:55:12,259 --> 00:55:18,800
pictures i i made you know it was all like here's something you've got it now here's my money for it

712
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:25,080
you know and and then the platforms became the publishers and the platforms required

713
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:30,140
your content for free and i really resisted at the start i remember telling everyone this is a

714
00:55:30,140 --> 00:55:34,820
scam look can you not see what's happening you know the old version of photography of being a

715
00:55:34,820 --> 00:55:40,680
photographer was you a magazine bought your content and put it in their magazine the new model is

716
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:46,739
uh instagram's the magazine yeah it's the mag where all the content's being shown but you're

717
00:55:46,739 --> 00:55:52,460
just giving it to them yeah as i stop it stop it and obviously you can't and then you to cope you

718
00:55:52,460 --> 00:55:57,280
start going okay right maybe they're right maybe i give it to them for free it gives me publicity

719
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:03,320
i get a job somewhere else and blah blah so it does generate me money but that's bullshit

720
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:09,320
to be perfectly honest it does work for some people but not for many whereas in the old system

721
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:21,574
when i was working there were thousands of photographers making a living you know even i were to the independent we had 20 photographers at one point it insane jobbing daily photographers you know you know and

722
00:56:21,574 --> 00:56:26,334
obviously now there's no photographers there at all there's and even if there was the wages would

723
00:56:26,334 --> 00:56:32,114
be half of what they were back then because yeah you know but but it is the kind of the way the

724
00:56:32,114 --> 00:56:40,694
internet has been has been implemented it's it's it's a place to advertise it's the platform to

725
00:56:40,694 --> 00:56:46,534
advertise on rather than the an arena the marketplace where the the trade happens between

726
00:56:46,534 --> 00:56:53,254
me and the person that has my content maybe maybe that's that's the solution here maybe that's why

727
00:56:53,254 --> 00:56:59,694
NOSTA is so important even though it's not very um popular at the moment because it's peer-to-peer

728
00:56:59,694 --> 00:57:07,854
and maybe the problem with the internet is um the there's no peer-to-peer places to swap

729
00:57:07,854 --> 00:57:16,154
content like instagram's a place where you swap content but someone monetizes it in the back end

730
00:57:16,154 --> 00:57:24,514
and you you get basically taken for granted completely whereas with nostr arguably you you

731
00:57:24,514 --> 00:57:29,174
have control over your content i don't know i don't i don't know enough about nostr to to

732
00:57:29,174 --> 00:57:34,694
to make a prediction what do you think am i am i talking am i am i confused i do sound a little

733
00:57:34,694 --> 00:57:41,614
bit confused actually i think it's fair enough to be confused i mean nostr is a such a a new and

734
00:57:41,614 --> 00:57:46,854
significant innovation that we're all still figuring out what it's going to be used for

735
00:57:46,854 --> 00:57:51,754
like what problems is it going to solve like and i think people are interested in different aspects

736
00:57:51,754 --> 00:57:56,534
of nostr because there are so many different parts of it you know you've got the the identity aspect

737
00:57:56,534 --> 00:58:03,034
of it you've got the sort of portability of that identity be able to take it anywhere um so you no

738
00:58:03,034 --> 00:58:07,674
longer have an instagram account a facebook account uh you know whatever a google account

739
00:58:07,674 --> 00:58:12,534
you just have one account i mean that makes a lot of sense but then i don't know i think the

740
00:58:12,534 --> 00:58:19,314
the interesting aspect for me is the fact that all of the the content can move across different

741
00:58:19,314 --> 00:58:23,914
platforms not necessarily that the the people can move across different platforms sure that's cool

742
00:58:23,914 --> 00:58:36,274
But it's really interesting now that, I mean, if you put it into like a modern world example, somebody posts something on Instagram and someone can see it on YouTube.

743
00:58:36,494 --> 00:58:37,754
Like, how cool is that?

744
00:58:37,874 --> 00:58:39,114
Like, you forget about these.

745
00:58:39,294 --> 00:58:41,374
You don't have this idea of a platform anymore.

746
00:58:41,914 --> 00:58:42,594
It's a network.

747
00:58:42,634 --> 00:58:43,394
It's an ecosystem.

748
00:58:43,394 --> 00:58:52,214
You put something into the ecosystem and it can pop up on any number of different apps and people on any number of different apps can interact with it and respond to it.

749
00:58:52,214 --> 00:58:58,754
like that that is really really cool that's good for content but that's not necessarily good for

750
00:58:58,754 --> 00:59:07,014
content creators like how if in as much as um if i don't like the way my like for example if you go

751
00:59:07,014 --> 00:59:11,374
on in if you go on youtube you're being shown a bunch of videos that you might not want do you go

752
00:59:11,374 --> 00:59:16,874
to nostra or the or a nostra client that you chose videos you can control the algorithm yourself you

753
00:59:16,874 --> 00:59:21,394
can see whatever you want you can see everything or you can yeah yeah that's great but what about

754
00:59:21,394 --> 00:59:29,134
people who want to make a living out of content people who are running podcasts running shows

755
00:59:29,134 --> 00:59:35,834
running i mean it's a big business now isn't it think about how many people it's all it's become

756
00:59:35,834 --> 00:59:41,734
part of a business model as well podcasting especially the thing like i'm a perfect example

757
00:59:41,734 --> 00:59:47,594
of this because i listened to podcasts for years and then i was asked to do this one and when i

758
00:59:47,594 --> 00:59:52,674
started doing it i realized what an incredible tool for business it is yeah i.e you and me are

759
00:59:52,674 --> 00:59:57,694
sat across the table now if i want to do business with fountain and i phone you up and say hey you

760
00:59:57,694 --> 01:00:03,194
know uh can i can i talk to you say oh you know let's do a 10 minute zoom call you know if you if

761
01:00:03,194 --> 01:00:08,054
you run a podcast you can come in sit down before you know it you really get to know someone and we

762
01:00:08,054 --> 01:00:13,914
that happened to us with with this podcast yeah we went to visit in person all these places and it

763
01:00:13,914 --> 01:00:18,514
it was massive for our network our network of connections it was beautiful it's brilliant which

764
01:00:18,514 --> 01:00:25,014
is obviously in one sense this is one of the ways we're monetizing this podcast we don't get actual

765
01:00:25,014 --> 01:00:34,594
money for it but our network is is growing in in in value but then the question is okay how am i

766
01:00:34,594 --> 01:00:39,314
going to monetize that network and normally it's like oh let's find some people who might want to

767
01:00:39,314 --> 01:00:45,014
advertise here then because now we've got the eyeballs now we've got the ears and the eyeballs

768
01:00:45,014 --> 01:00:51,554
what can we sell them and you know i don't like that thing there's a part of me that thinks that

769
01:00:51,554 --> 01:00:58,114
is a service as well because i have one uh advertiser who i really like and i really like

770
01:00:58,114 --> 01:01:04,394
what they're doing so in a way i'm like cool i'm really happy to tell you about veritas village for

771
01:01:04,394 --> 01:01:11,774
example or the off-grid communities in panama and stuff but really the ideal way to make a living

772
01:01:11,774 --> 01:01:19,054
would be for listeners to you know in in a small way especially through a subscription i like that

773
01:01:19,054 --> 01:01:27,094
um me to get you know x number of dollars each month like a wage for doing it so that i can then

774
01:01:27,094 --> 01:01:31,414
run the business like okay this is how much is coming in this is how much i can afford to spend

775
01:01:31,414 --> 01:01:36,954
on travel this is how much i can afford to spend on post-production blah blah blah you know which

776
01:01:36,954 --> 01:01:44,074
is the dream i suppose isn't it yeah that's the benefit of um you know like sponsorship deals and

777
01:01:44,074 --> 01:01:49,254
subscriptions is you get recurring revenue that's reliable and that's the thing with value for value

778
01:01:49,254 --> 01:01:55,414
it's the complete opposite you know one episode might get you i don't know 500 000 sats and the

779
01:01:55,414 --> 01:02:01,234
next one gets you 2 000 and you're like what's what's the difference um like how did one end up

780
01:02:01,234 --> 01:02:07,574
doing so well but i think that's also the great thing is because you you get a really clear signal

781
01:02:07,574 --> 01:02:13,614
of what work is actually valuable you don't get that with advertising you the advertiser pays

782
01:02:13,614 --> 01:02:18,854
on the based on the size of the audience not on the quality of the content and funnily enough like

783
01:02:18,854 --> 01:02:23,914
the the quality of content doesn't always dictate the size of the audience when it comes to podcasts

784
01:02:23,914 --> 01:02:29,154
some of these podcasters just have big audiences because they are celebrities like the quality of

785
01:02:29,154 --> 01:02:31,574
the actual content they're making is pretty poor.

786
01:02:32,894 --> 01:02:36,114
But people just like them because they're likable characters,

787
01:02:36,214 --> 01:02:37,174
they're popular characters.

788
01:02:38,454 --> 01:02:41,914
So I think, yeah, it's interesting that we can get to a place

789
01:02:41,914 --> 01:02:45,414
where the content creator is really getting a clear signal

790
01:02:45,414 --> 01:02:48,174
on what's working and then can do more of that stuff.

791
01:02:48,474 --> 01:02:50,914
And that's kind of a self-reinforcing loop

792
01:02:50,914 --> 01:02:53,594
whereby you're really optimizing towards enjoyment

793
01:02:53,594 --> 01:02:56,514
rather than the size of the audience and the number of eyeballs on it.

794
01:02:56,514 --> 01:03:01,514
which is good in one sense but then in another sense you can end up in a bubble that way

795
01:03:01,514 --> 01:03:09,774
i mean if you're if you're the kind of podcast that's um that's into something often you're

796
01:03:09,774 --> 01:03:17,794
you know one particular thing or if you're pushing a certain idea like we do um you know you you you

797
01:03:17,794 --> 01:03:25,234
if you if you're not careful the audience might want um cat pictures cat videos do you know what

798
01:03:25,234 --> 01:03:31,654
i mean like which is i don't know i'm not that's underestimating my audience of course but but i

799
01:03:31,654 --> 01:03:36,574
wouldn't necessarily say that part of being a creative is to please your audience all the time

800
01:03:36,574 --> 01:03:42,894
i think you know you worked in in advertising that's a creative's worst nightmare is when the

801
01:03:42,894 --> 01:03:49,054
ad guys are all i've been at shoots i used i shot ads for for a while and i'll be there

802
01:03:49,054 --> 01:03:55,874
doing my job and there'd be like a row of people behind me in stages the client the the you know

803
01:03:55,874 --> 01:04:01,114
and they're all saying can you do that can you and you're thinking why and this is why when i

804
01:04:01,114 --> 01:04:06,374
employ creatives i just say you should go and do it here's here's what i what i want you go and do

805
01:04:06,374 --> 01:04:11,294
it and i accept what you bring me that's why i've come to you as a creative you know so it listening

806
01:04:11,294 --> 01:04:18,454
to your audience is good but not not not always i think i agree um but also on the other side of

807
01:04:18,454 --> 01:04:23,194
this you have if you have advertisers you have to listen to them like what do they want you to do

808
01:04:23,194 --> 01:04:29,714
or what don't they want you to do and talk about hopefully not i mean i i would that would that's

809
01:04:29,714 --> 01:04:36,034
always that would be a proviso of me advertising with someone yeah if i suddenly realize how many

810
01:04:36,034 --> 01:04:42,334
i don't like your product i'm not going to mince my words i mean i think part of the attention

811
01:04:42,334 --> 01:04:49,454
economy is based on honesty and trust these days isn't it yeah and that i love that that's great

812
01:04:49,454 --> 01:04:55,674
it um you you're right that there are some celebrities who have podcasts who are diabolical

813
01:04:55,674 --> 01:05:01,034
and not worth listening to but people some people do i mean people watch cat videos don't they

814
01:05:01,034 --> 01:05:08,694
there's doesn't you can't stop that but in our realm of the attention economy um i think it's

815
01:05:08,694 --> 01:05:15,474
it's really important to be honest own up to your mistakes say it like it is and if you don't

816
01:05:15,474 --> 01:05:22,374
you you you could struggle but then again i don't know i know some very well listened to podcasts

817
01:05:22,374 --> 01:05:27,734
that screwed their listeners over and are doing very well in the bitcoin space as well that's

818
01:05:27,734 --> 01:05:32,454
something i don't know mate i don't know i don't know what the business model is all i know is that

819
01:05:32,454 --> 01:05:42,609
yeah do you think there a future in mass value for value like mass adoption

820
01:05:42,609 --> 01:05:49,969
value for value i hope so um i think that like you said at the very beginning though

821
01:05:49,969 --> 01:05:57,649
are we too early um i think we're we can be early on different fronts i think technologically yes

822
01:05:57,649 --> 01:06:03,429
for sure we're still early you know i've already said about the number of people who are using the

823
01:06:03,429 --> 01:06:08,509
bitcoin lightning network or know how to use it or even want to use it it's still so small that has

824
01:06:08,509 --> 01:06:13,329
been a limiting factor so far but then the other thing is the the consumer mindset and expectation

825
01:06:13,329 --> 01:06:19,609
of actually paying for something that's free already um so i think that it really depends

826
01:06:19,609 --> 01:06:24,549
on the type of podcaster you are there's some very clear and obvious examples already that tell us

827
01:06:24,549 --> 01:06:29,509
that value for value in itself exclusively can work as a business model for some podcasts.

828
01:06:29,769 --> 01:06:35,449
Adam Curry and John C. DeVolk have been doing that for 15 years, I think 20 years with no agenda.

829
01:06:36,309 --> 01:06:41,549
You know, originally that started out as we will take your checks in the post and then you can send

830
01:06:41,549 --> 01:06:47,589
us money on PayPal. And now it's you can send us a boost on Fountain or any other podcasting 2.0 app.

831
01:06:48,049 --> 01:06:52,009
So the technology has evolved behind a value for value, and I think it will continue to evolve.

832
01:06:52,009 --> 01:06:58,029
but it really comes down to the creator like how much how much do you want that freedom because if

833
01:06:58,029 --> 01:07:03,529
you really want it you have to really commit to it over a long period of time be really really

834
01:07:03,529 --> 01:07:09,909
consistent and not make any stupid decisions about you know advertising or other kind of things you

835
01:07:09,909 --> 01:07:15,309
might do to try and you know line your pockets um i think what no agenda have done is they've just

836
01:07:15,309 --> 01:07:20,909
been very very very honest and very transparent with listeners about cool we're self-funded we

837
01:07:20,909 --> 01:07:26,149
don't have ads send us some money so that we never have to do ads um and they built that relationship

838
01:07:26,149 --> 01:07:31,189
over the years and they have a great relationship with their audience so it's they they take value

839
01:07:31,189 --> 01:07:35,069
for value to the next level where it's not just someone sending money it's actually someone

840
01:07:35,069 --> 01:07:40,809
offering their time by creating the show artwork or doing the chapters or whatever else it might

841
01:07:40,809 --> 01:07:45,869
be there's a whole community of people here who are kind of producers on the show which is which

842
01:07:45,869 --> 01:07:51,529
is really cool um so yeah i think there there is a future for it i think though that most creators

843
01:07:51,529 --> 01:07:58,689
will find that value for value is just one aspect of their their revenues so using kind of the

844
01:07:58,689 --> 01:08:06,249
donations alongside a subscription uh or alongside having ads on your podcast community is you're

845
01:08:06,249 --> 01:08:14,949
absolutely right i was thinking about adam curry there and it's a very subtle and intangible thing

846
01:08:14,949 --> 01:08:19,469
community isn't it when you think about it in those terms yes he's putting out he does a show

847
01:08:19,469 --> 01:08:25,689
a day doesn't he adam and it's like a kind of like a new show on you know it's a great fun podcast but

848
01:08:25,689 --> 01:08:31,629
really to be to get to the level where you can lean on your listeners as much as they do

849
01:08:31,629 --> 01:08:40,129
is purely about maintaining this solid reason for existing and and do they i mean do they have

850
01:08:40,129 --> 01:08:46,889
like ways that their community reach out to each other independently and stuff is it that is that

851
01:08:46,889 --> 01:08:53,949
how it works they um what was it called they have this like um irc chat so it's like a decentralized

852
01:08:53,949 --> 01:08:59,829
chat system whereby it's the chat's always live you anyone can work or you know posting it whenever

853
01:08:59,829 --> 01:09:06,149
um and they also have i mean i'm not i'm not like too close to the show but they have this like

854
01:09:06,149 --> 01:09:12,269
no agenda live stream whereby it's like a 24 7 live stream that shows no agenda content

855
01:09:12,269 --> 01:09:19,429
but it also shows other podcasts so it's kind of like a like any other podcast within their sort

856
01:09:19,429 --> 01:09:23,889
of community can get some airtime on it so there's always something to watch and it helps

857
01:09:23,889 --> 01:09:30,129
kind of cross-pollinate that listener base across other shows bring fans of those different shows

858
01:09:30,129 --> 01:09:37,289
together um and then i don't know how like yeah so people the the audience create the artwork for

859
01:09:37,289 --> 01:09:43,269
each episode and then you can just submit them and then adam and uh john choose the artwork every

860
01:09:43,269 --> 01:09:47,909
episode and they give a credit to the person um so that they have all these different ways that

861
01:09:47,909 --> 01:09:53,829
they try and bring community into what they do and like to it sounds like really nice like any

862
01:09:53,829 --> 01:09:57,849
any podcast you could see that and be like oh it's really cool but like you have to ask yourself like

863
01:09:57,849 --> 01:10:03,389
how much do i want that like because it's it's a real commitment like you have to put in a lot of

864
01:10:03,389 --> 01:10:07,829
work and you have to be really focused on that purpose that end goal without getting distracted

865
01:10:07,829 --> 01:10:15,109
by other things especially um it's interesting adam curry's been on joe rogan's podcast a number

866
01:10:15,109 --> 01:10:20,849
of times hasn't he yeah not just once i think if you have four or five right and still value for

867
01:10:20,849 --> 01:10:30,229
value is not very well known about i mean that just shows you how unsticky kind of um value for

868
01:10:30,229 --> 01:10:36,649
value and streaming with bitcoin is um because he's the number one guy he's rogan loves him he's

869
01:10:36,649 --> 01:10:42,449
always calling him the pod the pod father and he really i think he got him into podcasting in fact

870
01:10:42,449 --> 01:10:49,089
so he really does big him up and and adam does talk about what he's doing but people don't seem

871
01:10:49,089 --> 01:10:54,729
to come over you can understand that he's probably monetizing that enough from that amount of

872
01:10:54,729 --> 01:11:03,169
exposure but yeah i i do think it would be tricky for the average podcast to to think in those terms

873
01:11:03,169 --> 01:11:09,389
like what why should i why should i try this i mean i suppose in the beginning you it doesn't

874
01:11:09,389 --> 01:11:14,649
really matter nothing ventured nothing gained in the beginning but but you're absolutely right you

875
01:11:14,649 --> 01:11:21,609
really do have to go for it um and and unfortunately i suppose at the moment the value for value world

876
01:11:21,609 --> 01:11:31,349
is very skewed towards um really bitcoin really bitcoiners yeah is people who already have that

877
01:11:31,349 --> 01:11:40,729
sort of freedom mindset um who want to live outside of the system and and have have a different way of

878
01:11:40,729 --> 01:11:46,069
doing things and it's yeah podcasters who also have that mindset as well so naturally that's

879
01:11:46,069 --> 01:11:50,529
where the movement has began and where it's kind of prospered but that's what we want to change we

880
01:11:50,529 --> 01:11:55,769
want to see if this can go and be something more mainstream have you got other types of content

881
01:11:55,769 --> 01:12:00,969
on there then what are the what obviously there's a ton of bitcoin call there's you get you get

882
01:12:00,969 --> 01:12:06,789
freedom podcasts like ours and freedom footprint that kind of thing and then you get like bitcoin

883
01:12:06,789 --> 01:12:12,909
podcasts what through and through like what what have you got that isn't related to that

884
01:12:12,909 --> 01:12:18,189
i mean there's all sorts of stuff and it's also not just podcasts either we also have music on

885
01:12:18,189 --> 01:12:23,909
there uh and we also have music shows which are podcasts which play music uh that you can support

886
01:12:23,909 --> 01:12:29,789
the artist directly so in terms of podcasts yeah there i mean there's there's all sorts of genres

887
01:12:29,789 --> 01:12:36,029
and categories of podcasts on fountain that are actually using fountain um not all of them are

888
01:12:36,029 --> 01:12:40,729
successful because again we're struggling with those issues of like are we too early on the

889
01:12:40,729 --> 01:12:46,029
technology front on the consumer mindset front but also i think that some of the let's say like

890
01:12:46,029 --> 01:12:51,489
a sports podcast on fountain for example like they maybe have got on into fountain because they thought

891
01:12:51,489 --> 01:12:56,729
it sounded interesting but they maybe just found they hit that barrier of like i'm not really sure

892
01:12:56,729 --> 01:13:01,749
what to do next i'm not sure if my listeners will know what to do next which i think is why it's

893
01:13:01,749 --> 01:13:06,889
mostly bitcoin podcasts that have done well um but i think what's really interesting though is

894
01:13:06,889 --> 01:13:12,949
is the the whole music aspect because going back to that thing we're saying about what problem are

895
01:13:12,949 --> 01:13:18,049
we solving for for podcasters well the problem we're solving for artists is it's even more clearer

896
01:13:18,049 --> 01:13:21,889
and it's i think something that the listeners understand even more than the podcast listeners

897
01:13:21,889 --> 01:13:27,649
do which is that artists don't get paid very well you know the terms and conditions of the music

898
01:13:27,649 --> 01:13:34,409
industry are incredibly oppressive for artists um i think after if your song gets streamed a

899
01:13:34,409 --> 01:13:39,349
thousand times on spotify you maybe make four or five dollars i don't think it's even that

900
01:13:39,349 --> 01:13:44,489
i saw yeah maybe less it depends on this numbers from snoop dogg or something yeah said he got

901
01:13:44,489 --> 01:13:50,949
something ridiculous like a billion listens and it was worth like you know a few thousand dollars

902
01:13:50,949 --> 01:13:56,429
or something was ridiculous and then you know that that paper stream that's come down considerably

903
01:13:56,429 --> 01:14:01,989
over the years while at the same time the cost of a spotify subscription has gone up considerably

904
01:14:01,989 --> 01:14:08,229
so you know there's something going on there once again that i saw that happen happening in real time

905
01:14:08,229 --> 01:14:15,529
when i worked in the media and i just thought okay the model of the copyrighted music model

906
01:14:15,529 --> 01:14:21,289
is just out of date now because what happened what you saw happened was people had to go out

907
01:14:21,289 --> 01:14:26,249
and play gigs on stage to make money that was it and and i didn't see that as necessarily a bad

908
01:14:26,249 --> 01:14:32,349
thing i thought okay we've lived off this kind of renting this mindset of i can produce music

909
01:14:32,349 --> 01:14:37,729
and then i can send it out there and go go to bed and it makes me money to the okay now i actually

910
01:14:37,729 --> 01:14:42,269
have to get up and go to work i have to i need a proof of work here i need to actually be on stage

911
01:14:42,269 --> 01:14:46,629
strumming my guitar and singing in order to make the money i didn't see that as necessarily

912
01:14:46,629 --> 01:14:48,389
a bad thing.

913
01:14:48,389 --> 01:14:50,889
Or no, I didn't like it because it,

914
01:14:50,889 --> 01:14:53,629
basically I used to get a lot of money in royalties

915
01:14:53,629 --> 01:14:55,769
from video and film.

916
01:14:55,769 --> 01:14:57,649
It's almost non-existent now.

917
01:14:57,649 --> 01:14:59,069
You know, it just doesn't really happen.

918
01:14:59,069 --> 01:14:59,969
It does happen.

919
01:14:59,984 --> 01:15:05,584
every month but it's minuscule you used to be able to live off royalties but but i when i think about

920
01:15:05,584 --> 01:15:12,384
that system in general it's like yeah okay could i it it is a bit better to actually get paid for

921
01:15:12,384 --> 01:15:18,304
what you do is a bit rent seeking to sort of like ask for people to pay just to listen to my stuff

922
01:15:18,304 --> 01:15:25,984
over and over again but then again um if you prepare to pay which people in on so on on fountain

923
01:15:25,984 --> 01:15:35,244
do you pay you do you subscribe to a a new uh as an audio channel then like or is it or do you pay

924
01:15:35,244 --> 01:15:41,164
per song or what so it's exactly the same as it is for podcasts you know you can choose to stream

925
01:15:41,164 --> 01:15:46,184
money to the artist directly you can choose to send a boost um and we'll also be launching

926
01:15:46,184 --> 01:15:52,904
subscriptions for artists as well so you could put exclusive releases material on fountain that

927
01:15:52,904 --> 01:15:58,624
wasn't anywhere else you can allow people to like download a high quality mp3 or web file

928
01:15:58,624 --> 01:16:04,764
you can maybe even do stuff off platform so if you want to give away early access to gig tickets or

929
01:16:04,764 --> 01:16:10,464
discount your merch page or access to your private group chat whatever else you want to do you can do

930
01:16:10,464 --> 01:16:15,704
that through fountain but yeah it's interesting because again the same thing that applies with

931
01:16:15,704 --> 01:16:20,924
podcasts also applies with music in the sense that the listener loves the artists but they're

932
01:16:20,924 --> 01:16:25,404
not actually paying they're not paying anything you know gone are the days where you walk into a

933
01:16:25,404 --> 01:16:31,324
record shop and you pick up a record from the the artist and you know that x percent whatever deal

934
01:16:31,324 --> 01:16:36,104
they've got with the label x percent is going to go into the artist's pocket at the moment i'm just

935
01:16:36,104 --> 01:16:41,524
paying spotify or paying youtube music or whatever else and somewhere in the background they figure

936
01:16:41,524 --> 01:16:46,424
out the economics and a bit of money goes to the artist but you don't have that direct relationship

937
01:16:46,424 --> 01:16:52,204
anymore um so that's what that's what we're trying to bring back yeah that's interesting it's an

938
01:16:52,204 --> 01:16:59,144
interesting problem to solve for because what was beautiful about um the old system is there's a

939
01:16:59,144 --> 01:17:03,844
collectability to the actual items themselves i've still got my complete collection of vinyl

940
01:17:03,844 --> 01:17:11,584
yeah you know ironically i sold my decks i had sl 1200s pioneer really nice decks i sold them i

941
01:17:11,584 --> 01:17:18,244
kept the vinyl because it had sentimental value the decks didn't you know um even cds i mean which

942
01:17:18,244 --> 01:17:23,724
is a bad example because they've really just you can buy cds for like 50p each now but people used

943
01:17:23,724 --> 01:17:31,264
to collect rows and rows of cds and they're maybe yeah we need to find a way to i suppose merch is

944
01:17:31,264 --> 01:17:38,844
the the the modern you know um incarnation of that if you but imagine if you could merch per

945
01:17:38,844 --> 01:17:42,884
episode or something i don't know maybe we're just in this world now where people

946
01:17:42,884 --> 01:17:50,724
we're moving on from that model and media is more free information is more free and it always will

947
01:17:50,724 --> 01:17:57,244
be and i don't know i i would love a value for value world though i really do i think i think we

948
01:17:57,244 --> 01:18:02,024
need a complete change of infrastructure in order to have that i think if we could all live in a in a

949
01:18:02,024 --> 01:18:10,444
in a kind of if the nostril infrastructure for example um permeated large sways of the population

950
01:18:10,444 --> 01:18:15,804
or even just large communities um it could be that you could probably i'm not techie enough

951
01:18:15,804 --> 01:18:20,224
but someone could implement a system where micropayments happen in the background without

952
01:18:20,224 --> 01:18:35,803
you thinking about it like it happens on you that what you guys have started doing yeah if i watch a podcast i paying them 10 sats if i listened actually i this morning i listened to one i was being paid 20 sats for 10 minutes

953
01:18:35,803 --> 01:18:43,463
which are back to me for listening but um but yeah i mean the theory is good right the theory

954
01:18:43,463 --> 01:18:49,223
is good i think whatever it is like we have to just try and work on for the listener taking the

955
01:18:49,223 --> 01:18:54,903
friction out of it yeah um you notice as well particularly when you're in london that a lot of

956
01:18:54,903 --> 01:19:01,563
the buskers on the underground have card machines now and they they pre-load like five quid or

957
01:19:01,563 --> 01:19:06,323
something onto their card machine so you can just walk past and tap it because people people are

958
01:19:06,323 --> 01:19:10,623
tight people don't want to pay for stuff unless they really have a good reason to unless it's

959
01:19:10,623 --> 01:19:15,543
made really really easy for you and i think that's why the streaming sats is so interesting

960
01:19:15,543 --> 01:19:17,803
is because it just happens in the background.

961
01:19:17,983 --> 01:19:18,823
You just turn it on.

962
01:19:19,523 --> 01:19:21,063
I can set it on for your show

963
01:19:21,063 --> 01:19:22,343
and then maybe off for another show

964
01:19:22,343 --> 01:19:23,223
that I don't like as much.

965
01:19:23,303 --> 01:19:25,723
I can choose how much I want to send per minute

966
01:19:25,723 --> 01:19:27,943
to your show versus some other show

967
01:19:27,943 --> 01:19:28,583
that I'm supporting.

968
01:19:29,283 --> 01:19:30,643
And I don't have to do anything.

969
01:19:30,723 --> 01:19:31,443
I don't have to lift a finger.

970
01:19:31,543 --> 01:19:32,543
It just happens in the background.

971
01:19:32,743 --> 01:19:36,623
There's no mental challenge on me at all.

972
01:19:36,723 --> 01:19:37,783
There's no decision of like,

973
01:19:38,203 --> 01:19:39,143
am I going to do this?

974
01:19:39,223 --> 01:19:40,823
What am I going to say?

975
01:19:41,063 --> 01:19:42,663
Like, how much am I going to send?

976
01:19:43,063 --> 01:19:44,183
It just happens.

977
01:19:44,183 --> 01:19:50,243
so we need to try and find ways of making it yeah more frictionless and i think having more payment

978
01:19:50,243 --> 01:19:58,043
options is part of that as well okay i can see because we're in a we work we've got a limited

979
01:19:58,043 --> 01:20:02,223
time here and i have to take down all this equipment i've got i think i've got one time

980
01:20:02,223 --> 01:20:09,083
for one more question um it has to be a question about the future i think and in particular because

981
01:20:09,083 --> 01:20:13,783
i see the movement i'm in the kind of freedom movement the free cities movement

982
01:20:13,783 --> 01:20:20,863
um it's the free cities movement at least is quite a fledgling thing this idea of independent

983
01:20:20,863 --> 01:20:28,863
jurisdictions and people setting up um new places you know it's it's quite new and i i can see that

984
01:20:28,863 --> 01:20:35,543
in i've got an opportunity to talk about it and people come and listen to it which is great

985
01:20:35,543 --> 01:20:42,903
but not masses amounts of people because it's a small industry it's but as people i've noticed on

986
01:20:42,903 --> 01:20:48,943
our stats our listenership just goes up and up and up it's not flattering out it's just going up

987
01:20:48,943 --> 01:20:55,463
and up and up slowly but surely and i i think that's about right i predict that because you

988
01:20:55,463 --> 01:21:00,223
know there's only so many people that want to hear about these kind of things until it becomes

989
01:21:00,223 --> 01:21:05,023
important to them and i think as time progresses i think we're the world appears to be on a

990
01:21:05,023 --> 01:21:11,623
trajectory where people are losing their freedom more and more and and every day someone new

991
01:21:11,623 --> 01:21:17,983
kind of bumps up against this barrier and goes oh shit and then they look it up and then they end up

992
01:21:17,983 --> 01:21:24,043
being a listener and then right so i i see that and i think it's great that people can start

993
01:21:24,043 --> 01:21:28,323
podcasts as well i think it's really important that people can start podcasts and these days

994
01:21:28,323 --> 01:21:35,303
podcasts aren't even podcasts podcasts are shows podcast is a is almost like a it's becoming a bad

995
01:21:35,303 --> 01:21:43,023
word almost you know um but the show is the old as in the the old tv show that used to do

996
01:21:43,023 --> 01:21:48,523
they're really they're really quite important i think probably if not the most important thing

997
01:21:48,523 --> 01:22:04,502
about getting in the battle of ideas so i thankful for like value for value platforms like yours but what are you what are you hoping in the future And what do you what do you think the timeline is for that

998
01:22:04,562 --> 01:22:12,442
As someone that's like on it all day, you know, working on it all day, promoting it,

999
01:22:12,822 --> 01:22:16,842
trying to get people to be on it, seeing what people content are putting on there,

1000
01:22:16,842 --> 01:22:20,142
seeing how much people are being listened to, seeing how much money they're making.

1001
01:22:20,142 --> 01:22:26,722
You can see, you know, what's the outlook for people that want to spread ideas through podcasting?

1002
01:22:27,642 --> 01:22:28,442
According to you.

1003
01:22:29,282 --> 01:22:29,682
Yeah.

1004
01:22:29,962 --> 01:22:37,162
Well, I think that as of next month, which is when we'll launch our podcast hosting platform that you've been using.

1005
01:22:37,482 --> 01:22:38,382
Oh, we haven't launched it yet.

1006
01:22:38,482 --> 01:22:40,222
Yeah, well, it's still kind of in beta.

1007
01:22:40,502 --> 01:22:40,862
Oh, right.

1008
01:22:40,962 --> 01:22:41,502
I didn't know that.

1009
01:22:41,602 --> 01:22:46,182
You saw one of the first few, but maybe by the time this comes out, it'll be live already.

1010
01:22:46,182 --> 01:22:52,562
you know finally podcasters will have all the tools they need to be able to go and make this

1011
01:22:52,562 --> 01:22:56,942
successful they've got the donations they've got the subscriptions they've got the premium content

1012
01:22:56,942 --> 01:23:03,442
they want to do like bonus episodes ad free early access whatever um and they've also got the ability

1013
01:23:03,442 --> 01:23:10,862
to not just receive payments in bitcoin but fiat money as well um so that we've we've been pining

1014
01:23:10,862 --> 01:23:15,862
for that really for the last couple of years to get to that point while also having a mobile app

1015
01:23:15,862 --> 01:23:22,462
which just works and the ux is what you would expect it to be and it's what the listener needs

1016
01:23:22,462 --> 01:23:27,522
it to be if they're going to move over from spotify so i think that very very soon by the

1017
01:23:27,522 --> 01:23:33,322
end of this year we'll have something that we think can you know get product market fit

1018
01:23:33,322 --> 01:23:40,982
the question is like yeah how uh how how broad can that market fit be because at the moment you

1019
01:23:40,982 --> 01:23:45,962
know i'd say maybe we have market fit with bitcoiners but that for us is probably not

1020
01:23:45,962 --> 01:23:52,582
going to be enough longer term for us to make a a valuable company out of it um so i don't know i

1021
01:23:52,582 --> 01:23:59,602
you know i think the good thing is that we're no longer really relying on adoption of bitcoin

1022
01:23:59,602 --> 01:24:05,982
for adoption of our product in the past we have been um and as much as we are big believers in

1023
01:24:05,982 --> 01:24:11,882
Bitcoin and value the freedom it gives us, the technology, the way that it works is so much

1024
01:24:11,882 --> 01:24:17,022
better than the fiat world. At least we're no longer reliant on that. So yeah, I don't know.

1025
01:24:17,082 --> 01:24:25,662
I'd say what I would love to see is within the next year or 18 months, a really large podcaster

1026
01:24:25,662 --> 01:24:31,562
who maybe has an audience in the millions, who is nothing to do with Bitcoin, who is able to earn

1027
01:24:31,562 --> 01:24:37,682
some meaningful money on fountain and by meaningful money i mean maybe something that can can compete

1028
01:24:37,682 --> 01:24:43,042
with the amount of money they're beginning from advertising um that i think would be would be a

1029
01:24:43,042 --> 01:24:53,482
great outcome for us yeah i think that would i it just occurred to me with the i i there was a that

1030
01:24:53,482 --> 01:24:59,222
was a great place to end but it just made me think of something and that was that um because you're

1031
01:24:59,222 --> 01:25:07,302
integrated with NOSTA, do new people that come on who aren't into the whole Bitcoin NOSTA networks,

1032
01:25:07,802 --> 01:25:13,222
do they still have to join NOSTA? You don't have to. If you want to use any of the social features,

1033
01:25:13,222 --> 01:25:19,062
like if you want to comment on something, or you want to, I think, create a clip or a playlist,

1034
01:25:19,282 --> 01:25:32,481
you have to create a NOSTA profile But you can do that within Fountain What about if you want to subscribe with dollars which like i say i got a subscriber with dollars and do they have to have a nostril

1035
01:25:32,481 --> 01:25:37,261
account even though they're they're just sending dollars over strike would yeah because we actually

1036
01:25:37,261 --> 01:25:44,861
uh and not to get too deep into the technological stuff but we actually need nostril to uh prove

1037
01:25:44,861 --> 01:25:49,541
your identity when you're buying something so if i've subscribed to your podcast or if i bought one

1038
01:25:49,541 --> 01:25:55,581
of your bonus episodes i can i can prove that i purchased it so if i'm logged in let's say like

1039
01:25:55,581 --> 01:26:00,941
another podcast app started the same subscription thing that we have which they can do because it's

1040
01:26:00,941 --> 01:26:06,601
all built on an open protocol if i subscribe to your show on fountain but then i downloaded this

1041
01:26:06,601 --> 01:26:12,201
other app and logged into my nostril profile there i would still be able to access your content from

1042
01:26:12,201 --> 01:26:18,781
that other app too because i'm using the nostril profile as the verification there right okay

1043
01:26:18,781 --> 01:26:26,661
maybe maybe we are a little bit too early i don't know i think i'm excited i'm excited because

1044
01:26:26,661 --> 01:26:33,021
like i've got i've only got a few subscribers but it's still some subscribers paying money

1045
01:26:33,021 --> 01:26:40,241
and that's exciting you just you just sort of like adjust your um how excited you get about

1046
01:26:40,241 --> 01:26:46,301
certain amounts of money meter whatever that is you know in the old if you have it's not how much

1047
01:26:46,301 --> 01:26:50,601
you're earning it's the fact that people are choosing to hit the subscribe button and send

1048
01:26:50,601 --> 01:26:56,621
you money regularly which is really cool and i i i hope i'm i mean i'm playing the long game here

1049
01:26:56,621 --> 01:27:03,841
i'm definitely on board because i'm in that world as well the freedom world of the bitcoin world are

1050
01:27:03,841 --> 01:27:10,221
bedfellows and a lot of our people are in the fountain world and it's true even when you look

1051
01:27:10,221 --> 01:27:17,661
at the statistics even when we were on spotify the um the number of listeners was spotify or and

1052
01:27:17,661 --> 01:27:22,061
fountain were often having a battle with each other with how many people were using the platform

1053
01:27:22,061 --> 01:27:27,321
to listen because sometimes you have episodes which are more geared towards the bitcoin aside

1054
01:27:27,321 --> 01:27:33,761
and then they like listening to those um but but yeah i really do hope that that the the the whole

1055
01:27:33,761 --> 01:27:40,721
thing scales and the whole thing evolves into something big because I like I say I'm I've been

1056
01:27:40,721 --> 01:27:47,461
in the media my whole life my whole working life and the dream right from the word go when did the

1057
01:27:47,461 --> 01:27:53,081
digital world started appearing and I spotted it the dream was always to to live in a value for

1058
01:27:53,081 --> 01:28:00,601
value system always in everything in everything you did it was the way that I saw you would get

1059
01:28:00,601 --> 01:28:05,001
paid when when we started moving into the digital world and you started realizing creators were

1060
01:28:05,001 --> 01:28:10,581
getting completely disenfranchised by this whole system and whilst it's only a few people at the

1061
01:28:10,581 --> 01:28:18,481
moment let's hope in the future it could be just the way things work hopefully yeah i hope so we'll

1062
01:28:18,481 --> 01:28:24,541
do everything we can to get there cool well nick thanks for coming in thanks for coming in to hear

1063
01:28:24,541 --> 01:28:29,621
yeah i appreciate it i like uh i feel really young and vibrant being around all these people

1064
01:28:29,621 --> 01:28:35,561
doing hot desking and stuff like that and yeah good luck and um and yeah thanks for talking it's

1065
01:28:35,561 --> 01:28:36,621
been great thanks a lot
