I love microeconomics. While its usefulness as a model for describing the complexity of our real world is pretty limited, it can be quite accurate in certain situations. One of my favorite concepts is that of diminishing returns. It states that up to a certain point, every “unit” of labor you put into an activity will produce a correspondingly significant “unit” of output. But at a certain point, the returns for every “unit” of labor begin to diminish, and the output slows down.

My whole life has been about finding this balance – to put the appropriate amount of effort into something, such that I will receive the maximum return possible. To avoid reaching the point of diminishing returns. It’s been a challenge.

Take the /Filmcast. For years and years, we used to record an extra segment of the podcast called The /Filmcast: After Dark. I loved a lot of these segments, which essentially were just me and my co-hosts talking about random topics after we’d recorded the official show. Many of our fans loved these too, with some writing in that they actually enjoyed these segments more than the official show itself.

In fall of 2012, we decided to eliminate these segments as a regular part of our feed, although they still do pop up from time to time. There were some logistical reasons for this decision, one of them being that it was already difficult enough to schedule guests for the regular show, let alone asking for a 3-hour commitment to do the after-show as well. But for me, it was really all about the fact that I was stretched too thin already doing the show while moving to a new city and starting a new job, and I wasn’t getting that much out of the After Dark episodes. They took up hours of extra time and they frequently didn’t result in a product that I was particularly proud of (although sometimes they did – it was a crapshoot, and I guess that was part of the fun).

Over time, all of my other endeavors (podcasts, video work, photography) have presented dilemmas for how I should spend my time. Whether it’s an interview with a director, a fan commentary on a film, a review of a specific movie, a discussion on a specific topic, or whether or not to do a podcast at all: for each of these activities, I’ve started asking myself the following questions:

1) How much enjoyment/benefit do I derive from this activity? – Is the benefit I get (psychically, monetarily, physically, emotionally, intellectually, etc.) significant enough to be worth the opportunity cost of not doing something else? Is spending X hours doing this activity the most benefit I could get from that X hours? Is there something that doing this activity specifically provides me that doing another activity for the same amount of time cannot?

2) How much will fans enjoy this activity? How much will it contribute to the public discourse about a particular topic? – Is this something that a significant amount of people will enjoy? Will it significantly enhance people’s enjoyment/appreciation of a specific topic or product? Will it add value in a way that other people or other works cannot?

3) Is this activity something that will attract new listeners/fans? – Will doing this activity attract more fans in a way that corresponds to the amount of effort/time/money it requires?

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It was a difficult truth to accept, but listenership for most of my podcasts has basically plateaued. While the /Filmcast still gets dozens, perhaps even hundreds of new listeners every month, the days of exponential growth are long past. Movie podcasts that are strictly movie podcasts just don’t have that large of a potential audience (that statement excludes movie podcasts with “crossover” potential, such as The Flop House, which is theoretically also a comedy podcast, and can be categorized as such). From a growth perspective, you’re much better off in other podcast categories like comedy, culture, or even TV.

As a result, it’s been challenging to answer some of these questions on occasion. For instance, a /Filmcast interview with a director may take many hours to set up, and may be a very enjoyable and fulfilling experience for me, but is likely to bring us less than a dozen new listeners. This is also true of my interviews with film score composers, which consistently receive positive feedback but also get fewer downloads than some of our more popular episodes. Could I use this time to do something equally fulfilling but that would be far more likely to reach a mass audience (like say, creating a Youtube video)? Sometimes!

Ultimately, I keep on doing the things I do because I love them and because I get a lot out of them. But finding a balance for each of the above factors is something that will continue to challenge me and continue to evolve as time goes on. For anyone that creates content, I think these are all factors that are worth evaluating.

From Dave Gonzales comes a distressing post about the fate of his movie podcast, Operation Kino:

I proposed a counter-offer: “Give us control over the RSS feed and we’ll keep posting the podcast episodes on CinemaBlend, nothing will change.” Even though I’d just been slapped in the face by another man’s penis, I thought this was the best-case scenario. Josh doesn’t lose whatever audience we did or did not have and we could quietly migrate to our own server space, owning all the files and connections. No one would be losing anything. This offer was rejected, with the added “fuck you” of “You guys had a good run.” Basically, we didn’t get to record a last episode of Operation Kino because we had dared to suggest we owned the thing we made for almost three years.

I completely sympathize with Dave. As someone who’s spent a significant part of the last five years creating podcast content, it would horrify me to see someone make a power grab and claim credit for something I’d been integral in building. That being said, I don’t think Josh Tyler (a person who I’ve never interacted with) is completely unreasonable in some of his expectations, although, based solely on this post, he may have gone about some things the wrong way.

Here’s the thing, though: a popular website is a viable platform from which to launch a podcast. It is reasonable to expect something in return for providing such a platform. It is incredibly difficult to get podcast listeners. Incredibly difficult. Listening to a lengthy audio program requires a lot of commitment, and the more specific your field, the smaller your potential pool of fans gets. For movie podcasts, that pool is very small. Allowing someone to launch a podcast on your website takes an act of faith and it is unwise to discount the value of this.

Ideally, the relationship will be symbiotic: both the site and the podcast will benefit from each other’s presence. More importantly, parties on both sides of the relationship need to perceive each side’s contributions similarly. An imbalance can result in an unfortunate situation.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work under Peter Sciretta from /Film. Peter not only was savvy enough to create the sizable /Film empire from pretty much nothing, he’s also one of the nicest, most supportive people I know. He has given me a huge amount of creative freedom and a significant amount of ownership in all my online activities for his website. But here’s a lesson I’ve learned during my travels: Most people are not as nice as Peter Sciretta. You’re best off assuming this is the case and taking precautions accordingly.

This week sees the conclusion of The Ones Who Knock, the podcast I host with Joanna Robinson which covers both parts of the fifth season of Breaking Bad. This season of the podcast, and the most recent season of A Cast of Kings, were both made possible as a result of successful Kickstarters (both projects were funded within 48 hours of launch). I’ve already written my thoughts on how to launch a decent Kickstarter, but as this “season” of the podcast is about to come to an end, I thought I’d reflect on a few thoughts regarding the model of Kickstarting podcasts.

Podcasts are a strange beast. Their very format consigns most of them to niche status at best. The closest mainstream analogue I can find to podcasting is talk radio or shows on NPR. The producers of the latter understand that radio is no longer “appointment listening.” People are either leaving the radio on at work all day, or they listen to a 5 or 10-minute chunk in between conversations in the car. Information provided in relatively short bursts is the key. Thus, a 50-minute long conversation about last night’s episode of Breaking Bad is impossible to make into a mass-appeal product. This frequently leads to the following:

Result #1: The overwhelmingly vast majority of podcasts don’t attract enough listeners to attract any significant advertisement money.

Result #2: The overwhelmingly vast majority of podcasts are labors of love.

Result #3: The podcasts we know and love can easily end at any time, and without warning.

The fact that most podcasts are a result of sheer enthusiasm and will on the part of their producers does give them a special, intangible quality. But by accepting this as the norm, we’ve consigned ourselves to a world in which there’s no functioning business model to make podcasting into a solvent enterprise.

In my opinion, the Kickstarters we’ve launched show that if the quality of the product is acceptable, the audience exists, and the price is reasonable, people are willing to pay for something that will help them engage with their favorite forms of art on a deeper level.

From a producer’s perspective, I can say that getting paid for the podcast unequivocally motivated me to put out a better product. It’s one thing to futz around in Skype conversations without any idea of whether or not people are actually listening to you; it’s quite another to know that people are paying to listen and expecting a certain level of quality for each episode. I became considerably more motivated towards cranking out bonus content, like our interview with Dave Porter, to reward those that found our conversations and insight worth paying for.

Doing a podcast can introduce a number of stressors into one’s life: the burden of a weekly recording/production routine, the pressure to “perform” well, and, of course, the onslaught of commenters, e-mailers, and Twitterers saying nasty things about you. But it also confers a bunch of rewards. Many podcasters out there seek to find a balance that enables them to continue doing great work. I think the Kickstarter model and its attendant revenue help to tip things in favor of more quality content.

Harry Knowles’s Ain’t It Cool News helped inaugurate the modern era of film fan sites. With its enthusiastic reviews, its incredible scoops, and its roster of talented film writers, Knowles helped create the template for a lot of what fans read on the internet today (including the film site I currently work for). While AICN has fallen on hard times as of late, it’s still going strong with boatloads of readers.

Recently, Knowles has taken to Kickstarter to try to raise money for his web series, “Ain’t It Cool with Harry Knowles.” That show aired on the Nerdist network for 30 episodes but was turned down for a follow-up season, so Knowles is now hoping his fan base will kick in some cash to keep the dream alive. I have a lot of thoughts on the show itself and its viability as an ongoing concern, but that’s not the focus of my post today. Instead, I wanted to highlight how Knowles’ Kickstarter project reveals one of Kickstarter’s major flaws.

When Knowles posted on his website about the Kickstarter, he was inundated with comments, the vast majority of which were nasty and vitriolic. That Talkback thread has now spawned over 16,000 comments, a massive number even by the site’s standards. The top-voted comment reads partially as follows: “WHY SHOULD ANY ONE FUND THIS? The ‘first season’ was just a vanity project for you – all about you, starring you, about you and your fabulous toys which you have and no one else does and we’re supposed to envy you. Any guest who came on who had accomplished more than you from humble roots you shit on.”

On a fundamental level, it’s fascinating that so many people who are regulars on Ain’t It Cool seem to vehemently hate the person who created it all. The Kickstarter talkback is a murderer’s row of users who have built up a lot of bitterness and resentment for what appears to be decades. The high asking price on the Kickstarter project is just their latest excuse for unleashing a verbal beatdown on Knowles. Reading through the comments, it’s difficult not to feel bad for Knowles, despite the potential veracity of the accusations hurled at him.

I was also struck by another realization. To my knowledge, Kickstarter has no (public) answer to the following question:

How do you stop people from manipulating Kickstarter in order to actively destroy your project?

If you visit the comments section of the AICN Kickstarter, you’ll find even more hatred from some of the project’s “backers.” In fact, at least one of the backers is clearly pledging massive amounts of money (i.e. in the thousands) with the clear intention of retracting that pledge later. 

Why is this a problem? Here’s a graph of Pledge Distribution over of the life of a project, which Kickstarter itself generated:

According to Kickstarter, “As the graph illustrates, funding tends to cluster around the very beginning and very end of a campaign. There’s a logic to this. When a project launches the creator’s most fervent fans rush to show their support. And as time runs out, people who have been sitting on the sidelines are motivated to finally take action.”

Users who pledge massive amounts of money may seem totally legitimate at first. But Kickstarter gives them the option to retract those pledges or lower those amounts at any time. By pledging with the intention of retracting, users can effectively sabotage the Kickstarter by significantly lowering the urgency for people to pledge.

With less than 48 hours to go (and a project length of 30 days), Knowles’ Kickstarter hasn’t even reached its 2/3rds funding point, meaning he likely will not come close to his goal. Thus, the prospect that some of Knowles haters could significantly influence the outcome is pretty unlikely. Nonetheless, if the project had come closer, then a pack of his detractors could have easily led this project to a different outcome.

There aren’t really any easy fixes on Kickstarter for this, but one that jumps to mind is the ability to “lock in” pledges a certain amount of time before the project has expired. This way, if people are going to play the retraction game, at least the project owners still has a significant amount of time to get the money they need. But no solutions are optimal. As Kickstarter starts to experience more diverse “user scenarios,” I hope they’ll move quickly to solve problems like this.

Update: Scott in the comments points out that protection like this is already in place, but it is only for the final 24 hours and only if the pledge reduction doesn’t drop the project below its goal. I don’t feel this is adequate given the gaming that we are seeing here, but at least it is something.

Update 2: In a fairly stunning turn of events, the Kickstarter project is now fully funded. The project received over $60,000 worth of funding in under 48 hours. That is staggering. Worth noting: Average donation was $166/pledge (average across Kickstarter = $75/pledge). Plus, based on the rewards that were claimed, we can calculate that around $42,500 was donated by 10 people.