There has been lots of talk about v4v being dead lately. I thought I would weigh In.
Welcome to Podcast Answers, the show where I help people start and grow their podcast,
Speaker:answering any questions about podcasting along the way. That's right, I'm here to help you
Speaker:start and grow your podcast.
Speaker:Today is going to be a little bit different. We normally talk basics and all sorts of things
Speaker:about podcasting, but this today is still is about podcasting, but it's more on the
Speaker:geeky side. That's right. We are going to be talking about value for value, what it
Speaker:is.
Speaker:Is it dead? All sorts of things like that. But first, I want to remind you, I'm gonna
Speaker:let you know that E cam is currently on sale for the month of July. And if you're not familiar
Speaker:with E cam, it's the live streaming software that I use to do this show. It is I if you
Speaker:don't know, I stream this show to YouTube live as we record, you don't have to stream,
Speaker:you can just do it live.
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Speaker:you to do overlays and bring in comments that allows you to do all sorts of different things.
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Speaker:would suggest going to podcastanswers.com/ecam. That's E C A M M with two M's. And it is a
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Speaker:of software that you can use to create your podcast and to go live and do all of those
Speaker:things that you want to do with your podcast.
Speaker:So with that, though, what is value for value? Let's talk a little bit today about value
Speaker:for value. And if you don't know what value for value is, it is, it's a, it's a topic.
Speaker:It's a idea that was coined by Adam Curry. Adam is one of the, I'm going to say the pod
Speaker:father. He's one of the creators of podcasting. I'm not going to give all credit to him. There
Speaker:was a collaboration with several people, but he did create help create podcasting. And,
Speaker:and he had this idea of value for value.
Speaker:And essentially what that is, is I'm giving you value by producing this show, but by putting
Speaker:out this show, this podcast answer show, if you find value in it, you assign some sort
Speaker:of value and give that back. And that can be time that can be talent. And that can be
Speaker:treasure. So those three T's and start by, by treasure is going to be the easiest one.
Speaker:That's a sign of monetary value to that is, is this episode worth $5 to you? Is it worth
Speaker:$10 for you? What about $500? And the idea is, I'm not going to tell you, yes, there's
Speaker:lots of different, lots of different platforms out there that you can use to monetize your
Speaker:podcast. And I'm not saying monetization. You can use Patreon, buy me a coffee, Apple
Speaker:podcasts, whatever to say, "Hey, give me 5, 10, $20 a month, whatever I want to support
Speaker:you." And that's great. Like I do that for this show. I have a buy me a coffee for this
Speaker:show. And it is one of the things that I like doing.
Speaker:Like it allows you as a listener to give back to me. It's one of the ways to give back to
Speaker:me. But with value for value, it's an open-ended deal. Because what you find is if you give
Speaker:a tier level, so 5, 10, 15, 20, etc, etc. You're limiting the amount that people can
Speaker:give. You're saying, "I'm only going to allow you to give me $10 a month." You're limiting
Speaker:that. So with value for value, that's going to allow you to say, open-endedly, "This podcast
Speaker:is worth $5 to me. $10, $20." There's an open-ended amount. And what you'll find is some people
Speaker:may only give $0.30, $1, whatever. But they may also give $300. And so you actually end
Speaker:up making more by not limiting it. And there's the other two T's in there are time and talent.
Speaker:Time being, you're going to give your time back to it. Whether it's talking about the
Speaker:podcast to people, or if it is telling people about the podcast, being your marketing department,
Speaker:if you will. It's also putting in... It's time. Anything that you can give back to time
Speaker:is what it is. And so what talent is then is... Let's say you're a creative person that
Speaker:you can do art. You may be designing cover art for the episodes. You may be doing all
Speaker:sorts of different things for the episode. And then... So that's another way to give
Speaker:back your talent with that. So what value for value is and what a lot of people are
Speaker:referring to when they say value for value is streaming Satoshi's. And so one of the
Speaker:things that has come up with Podcasting 2.0 is this idea of streaming Bitcoin. And it's
Speaker:a cool technology. It allows you to play the podcast. And as you're playing the podcast,
Speaker:it allows you to send small micropayments, which you can't do with things like Patreon
Speaker:or PayPal or Stripe or whatever.
Speaker:You can't send sub pennies or pennies per minute because it just doesn't work out. But
Speaker:with Bitcoin and Satoshi specifically, you can stream small, small, small amounts of
Speaker:value back to the podcast or as you're listening or as you're going about and boosting. So
Speaker:that's what a lot of people are referring to as in... As value for value when they're
Speaker:talking about is value for value dead. And so what I've seen a lot lately is they...
Speaker:People are saying is... I've seen several episodes. I've seen in and around podcasting.
Speaker:I've seen the future of podcasting episodes. They're all talking is value for value dead.
Speaker:And so I thought I'd weigh in a little bit on that today. So no, as a concept, value
Speaker:for value is not dead. Value for value as in time, talent, treasure is not dead.
Speaker:But there are issues right now with Bitcoin. And here are some of the issues that I see
Speaker:about it. It's not... People are not so comfortable with Bitcoin yet. It's not... Yes, they are
Speaker:becoming more and more. I remember when I first heard Adam and Dave talk about the concept
Speaker:of streaming Bitcoin, I was a little bit hesitant. At that point, I said, "I don't know that
Speaker:I want anything to do with this." Now, I've played around with it because it's fun. And
Speaker:I don't necessarily have loads and loads and make loads and loads off of this podcast.
Speaker:But I did make some. And so people are still starting to become comfortable with it. But
Speaker:they're not comfortable. It's not the same as having just pulling out your credit card,
Speaker:typing your credit card numbers in and donating to a show. It's also not that easy. So it's
Speaker:not even a comfortable level, but it's easy of use. Now, it is becoming more again. So
Speaker:apps like TrueFans have allowed you to basically... They have an integration where you can say
Speaker:with Apple, you can just click and say you want to top up your wallet, and it'll take
Speaker:your US dollars or whatever dollars and convert them into Bitcoin and bring them in. But most
Speaker:apps are not that easy.
Speaker:Now the other thing that I'm seeing issues with it are regulations. And I'm going to
Speaker:specifically say regulations in the US, because the US are starting to create regulations
Speaker:about Bitcoin and what it means to have a wallet where somebody else holds your wallet
Speaker:instead of yourself, because then you become a money transmitter. And that's a whole...
Speaker:You need to have licenses and all sorts of things like that. So all of these services
Speaker:that have popped up around streaming Bitcoin and holding wallets and things are now starting
Speaker:to freak out a little bit because they can't be your wallet provider without having licenses
Speaker:and regulations.
Speaker:And so they're pulling back out of it. And one of the problems with that is, because
Speaker:it's a little bit hard to do, harder to do, it's not impossible to do it. But if you're
Speaker:holding your own Bitcoin node, that's really geeky. And most people, that's not something
Speaker:that they even want to try.
Speaker:And so there are different services that you can use to hold your Bitcoin wallet. And again,
Speaker:I told you this, this episode is going to be really, really geeky. But one of the services
Speaker:is the service that was really easy to use, became the centralized service for most things.
Speaker:The apps used it as their back end. A lot of the apps used it for their back end to
Speaker:send the money to and from where you as a listener could have a wallet and you as a
Speaker:podcaster could have a wallet.
Speaker:And it made it really super easy with really easy web calls to send this programmable money,
Speaker:these Bitcoins, these Satoshi's. And so because there's... We were relying on really almost
Speaker:one Albi service. Albi is the name of the service and they are getting worried because
Speaker:of these regulations. They are pulling out of this, of doing these wallets. And so these
Speaker:hosted wallets.
Speaker:And so what it really comes down to is, is value for value dead? No. Time talent treasure,
Speaker:not dead. But the idea of streaming Satoshi's does have issues right now. And there are
Speaker:some things in the works and we'll see how that shakes out.
Speaker:But again, we're having to switch and we're having to move things. And again, this is
Speaker:all what we're calling running with scissors. I mean, this is not mainstream again. This
Speaker:is a whole new concept is we're just getting people used to listening to podcasts now.
Speaker:I mean, podcasting has been around since 2005 and it's 2024 and people are just starting
Speaker:to get used to this being mainstream. And now we're throwing this idea of sending as
Speaker:we're listening, sending money back and support back to the podcaster, which I think is great.
Speaker:I mean, if your podcasters are going to be able to make a living or not, maybe not even
Speaker:make a living, but have some money, they get some something back for doing this.
Speaker:So it's time, talent or treasure from the listeners. They're going to be more likely
Speaker:to continue on in the future. And I would rather have listeners support my show again,
Speaker:because I think that when you have advertisers, people tune out to advertising and then you're
Speaker:tempted to add more and more advertisers to get more and more money.
Speaker:And so if you leave out those advertisers and you actually have your people support
Speaker:you, the people that are listening to you, it's more like you're gonna have a better
Speaker:show. Your show quality is going to be better because you're less likely to just be tempted
Speaker:to keep adding on advertisers. So those are my thoughts. That's what I think about value
Speaker:for value. I think it's a great idea as an addition to things for those of us who are
Speaker:geeky and want to play with it.
Speaker:I think it's great to do it, but I'm not relying on that. I do have a buy me a coffee. And
Speaker:if you want to check that out, you can go to podcastanswers.com/buymeacoffee and you
Speaker:can support this show there. You can support this show in a modern podcast app too. If
Speaker:you're listening to it on a modern podcasting app where you're streaming satoshis, you can
Speaker:listen to it and there you can support me there too.
Speaker:But again, if you're not comfortable with that, if you don't have that app, podcastanswers.com/buymeacoffee.
Speaker:If I've given you any value for this show, I ask that you assign a number back to that
Speaker:and give it back to me. Well, again, that could be time, talent or treasure. Just assign
Speaker:a sign of value and get in and give that back to me. Show me your support.
Speaker:So that is a tough topic. It's a long topic. It's a geeky topic. And I think that we're
Speaker:all exciting. We're in an exciting time with this new podcasting 2.0 things where we're
Speaker:allowing lots of new features to come to podcasting that have not been there traditionally.
Speaker:But some of the things I think are still developing. I think they're coming along. I think that
Speaker:they're going to be some awesome things in the future. But right now we're just trying
Speaker:to deal with lots and lots of new things.
Speaker:Bitcoin is new. Streaming Bitcoin is new. And so it's just going to take a little bit.
Speaker:Now, guys, this show is going to be off for a few weeks. I have a couple weeks of vacation
Speaker:that I'm going to be I'm going to be traveling in and out. And so I will not be doing this
Speaker:show while I'm on the road. I'm not taking this show on the road. But if you if you so
Speaker:just know that I will be back when you see no episodes here in the next two weeks, I
Speaker:will be back.
Speaker:But if you need any podcasting consulting, I'm more than happy to do that. And you can
Speaker:contact me by going to podcastanswers.com/contact. And I will that'll allow you to contact me
Speaker:and I can do a one on one session with you about podcasting about streaming and creating
Speaker:video with Ecamm.
Speaker:So guys, I just ask that you Yeah, you come back. Hold on. We will be back shortly. Thanks,
Speaker:guys. Have a great week and keep podcasting.
Speaker:(upbeat music)