Originally published in December 2021.
There are a lot of things I don’t understand about the internet, and while most of them have to do with Reddit, I’m also confused about the way we think about consuming content. Somehow, we built an internet where paying for the content you love wears the same mental outfit as doing someone a favor. We’ve even called it “supporting” creators, as opposed to paying people for the things we like enough to use on a regular basis. The linguistics of this bother me, because they support a school of thought that thinks the internet should be free, even when it’s helping, teaching, or entertaining us. As someone who creates a weekly podcast and maintains an online community for group of people who repeatedly tell me how much good my work is doing, I’d like to help change this narrative. Because I’m not asking for a gift. I’m asking to get paid for my job. And the way we talk about the difference actually matters.
If you consume content that someone creates, and I’m speaking specifically about regular, frequent consumption that’s become a part of the normal stuff you do during screen time, you’re not doing the creator a favor by paying for it. You’re paying for something you want and consume, the same way you pay for things before you leave the store or restaurant.
The podcast episodes I write, record, edit, and post to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and many other places I always forget about, receive roughly 4–6K listens within their first 30 days online, and I do this once a month. I also have a Patreon, where I post new podcast episodes every week, that currently has 550 members. Meaning, there are at least 3500 people who like my work enough to consume it every time I post it, but not pay for it. And I don’t think it’s their fault.
I think we built a consumption culture on the internet that treats content like it’s free, and like it should be free. Whether it’s entertainment, advice, education, guidance, community, or in the case of my work some combination of all these things, we love what we get, because we keep consuming it. And if we love it, I think we should pay for it. Free content isn’t actually the way forward, and I can prove it. Do you still use Napster or illegally download movies, or are you paying for Spotify and Netflix? (Also if someone wants to make Netflix for podcasts, I’m ready.)
Let’s spare each other the fantastical assumption that creators are making a living via ad dollars. Because if you’re a podcaster who’s being doing their work for three years and ads run at about $45 per 1,000 listeners, you know that $180 per week is insulting compared to how much time it takes to produce an episode. Especially since actually reaching out to and acquiring those advertisers takes more time on top of the work you’re already doing, and is usually fruitless because advertisers can simply sell their product through a celebrity’s podcast that launched yesterday and is already in Apple’s Top 10. Imagine if you owned a small business and a movie star decided to open the same kind of business next door. Where do you think people would shop?
One might think I sound bitter or angry, but flip the coin over and remember how much this internet loves to tell women to stand up for themselves, to use their voice, and to ask for their worth. That can’t be advice we only give in theory. If I watch my work get consumed—in volume—for free, you’re damn right I’ll have the bravery to ask to be paid for it—even on an internet where the culture has always been very different.
Sometimes it’s not just about how we talk about content, it’s how we deliver it. If you give your content away for free, that’s how it’s going to be consumed. And I guess I wanted to write this today to let other creators know that you’re not a bad person for asking your regular customers to pay you. There’s no shame in this for me. This isn’t me being an asshole, and really I think anyone who thinks I am an asshole for charging for my content is reflecting their own asshole-y feelings when they realize how long they’ve been taking things for free. I don’t want to guilt anybody, I just want to contribute to a narrative change. That’s sort of my thing.
So on Monday, I published my last free episode of A Single Serving Podcast. From now on, if you’d like new episodes of the podcast that’s changing the narrative around being single and helping a LOT of single women feel better about their lives, you can find it here, ad-free, on Patreon, every Monday morning. I also manage a Facebook group for this community where we don’t vent and bitch about dates and dating apps—that tired behavior is not allowed. Instead, we lift each other up, and have a place to celebrate the things the world never acknowledges. Like how proud we are of a single woman who just bought her first house on her own. We’re also the same amount of proud of a woman who just took herself to dinner alone for the first time. It’s a unique space, our space, and we’re using it to be one corner of the internet that lifts up people like us, as opposed to stuffing more dating advice in our direction.
Something else I’m not doing anymore: Using photos from Pexels, Unsplash, and the like for my Medium posts. Those are free resources, and while I have always credited the photographer, I haven’t paid them, because that hasn’t been required of me. This is the internet we’ve learned. There are a lot of resources that allow for use and consumption without payment, and I want to be more conscious of what that means moving forward. So I hope you like snapshots from my social life edited with a fancy app (that I pay for), because that’s what’s coming.
If you create something, and it helps people, or entertains people, or teaches people, congratulations—you’re doing good work. I think those who put things into the world that other people want and consume should be paid for those things. The internet is still a baby, really. We’re still learning how things should work and where all the little digital Legos lock together. In the meantime, I believe it’s important for those who give their work to an internet that wants it to be paid, so that we can keep doing more good, and so that our value isn’t just consumed, but compensated.