Freedomain Radio

From a new subscriber:

Hi Stef,

 

Thanks for the offer of the premium podcasts. I didn't have a board account so I've created one with the handle [x]. So far I've been strictly a listener so if the premium stuff is intended for members that are participating in the conversation I can understand and respect that. I just wanted to finally start sending some chips your way for all the podcasts I've already listened to.

 

I don't want to make this too long as I'm sure you have better things to do with your time than read email but it has taken an embarrassing length of time for me to start subscribing and when I thought about why I put it off for so long I came up with something you may find interesting. I realized that the words "support" and "donate" as opposed to "subscribe" and maybe "one time voluntary payment" were obstacles to deciding to pay for the podcasts.

 

 Not paying for them was inconsistent with my using iTunes rather than downloading stolen music and tipping the pizza guy or the dealer at the casino. I make some of my own income from tips as well so I understand and believe in paying for a service voluntarily and had I thought about the podcasts in the same way as a song from iTunes I probably would have been a subscriber much sooner. The problem with the terms support and donate is that they imply that the person isn't just paying for what they are using but also agreeing with the content and joining the cause. I'm not sure if you chose those specific terms for a reason but I spent a long time locked in a stupid debate with myself over how much I agree with the radical ideas within the podcasts and finding myself unsure of how much I wanted to get behind them. This ended when I finally realized that while I was having this debate with myself I was tearing through hours of content and hundreds of podcasts and it really didn't matter whether I agreed with any of it. Even if I disagreed with every word I was still listening and wanted to keep listening so on that basis alone I needed to either start paying or stop downloading. I fully realize that I'm preaching to the choir when it comes to that but I wanted to share with you where I missed the point.

 

This is already longer than I can expect anyone to read so I'll cut it off now. Thank you for all the great podcasts and I hope you keep them coming.