Chloe has just finished her postgraduate degree and started working, and listening to podcasts is a way for her to keep up with her studies but not take them too seriously. She doesn’t listen to many podcasts on a day-to-day basis, but she has a deep connection with the hosts of a regular podcast based on investigative journalism, which is related to science, history and psychology. When listening to the podcast, she pays attention to the personalities and emotions of the hosts and guests, and is very focused.
“I know the voices of them well enough to know what to expect.”
“There are times when I even pause the podcast and have a conversation to myself about the topic.”
“If I miss something I will go back. If I miss a part, then the rest of it doesn't really make sense.”
Her emotions often change when she listens to the podcast. Happy, heavy, all of these.
Yet on the other hand, she never wants to interact with the hosts and attributes this to the fact that she doesn’t use social media much and often listens to old podcasts from years ago, missing the best time to reach out to them even if she wanted to.
She doesn’t like ads in podcasts and hosts doing merchandising to make money.
“There are some hosts who just advertise for money, so it doesn’t feel genuine and it would affect my relationship with them.”
She said that she was willing to pay to be a member and enjoy some extra content and services, and claimed that she hadn’t done so yet for two reasons: firstly, she was a student at the time. Secondly, she felt there was some hassle in going to a platform like Patron to pay. It is worth noting that although she had never interacted with the hosts, when discussing the design provotypes, she expressed that she actually wanted to be able to comment to hosts, a feature that Spotify, which she was using, apparently did not offer.
Adam is a researcher at a university and there are two types of podcasts that he listens to most often. One is informative podcasts on more serious topics, to absorb information and keep up with his studies when travelling and shopping, and the other is comedy podcasts that he likes to listen to with his friends while driving.
“It’s funny to laugh with people when to share the joke, you know, laughing manically”
But in both cases, he doesn‘t care about the hosts and is reluctant to interact with them.
“When listening to informative podcasts, I sit in the background an just listen to them say; whereas when listening to comedy podcasts I usually interact and engage with the people around me.
“Generally I don’t like virtual interactions, all my favourite interactions are physical and in real life.”
He loves music and believes that it is more emotional for him and that podcasts are not as necessary for him. He claims that it would take a lot to convince him to pay for podcasts, as he believes that most of them are free to listen to and that they have already had steady source of funding, such as advertising, although he says he would hardly consume the merchandise in the ads either.
“There are already other people paying for them, or already getting revenue from ads, so do I need to pay for them very much? I wouldn’t feel very responsible.
“I hate adverts, but I can tolerate them because they are a necessary evil for these people to make money.”
But if someone did produce content that he really, really loved — he took the example of a YouTuber — he would be willing to get exclusive content on a subscription basis and be able to cancel at any time.
Yue loved listening to podcasts as an undergraduate, but doesn’t listen to them as often now. She prefers to professional podcasts with clear themes, such as The Daily from the New York Times, as a way to get information from credible media. She also likes to listen to her favourite hosts chatting about their life, and often resonate with them.
However, she finds that video is the medium that often has an emotional impact on her compared to podcasts, as the soundtrack and images are more compelling. She usually watches a lot of videos, but has hardly ever rewarded a video blogger.
“People usually reward them with very little money and I find that embarrassing and not very cool.”
Regarding paying for podcasts, she still thinks that podcasters should should monetise by taking ads, or she could pay the platform and the platform should help them make money. At the same time, she feels that the financial situation of the podcasters will also affect her willingness to pay.
“They [hosts of a podcast] already have a company, and they don’t lack money.”
“If they say they make a living from doing the podcast, or can’t continue unless listeners pay, I won’t open it again, it’s too much pressure. I’m more interested in shaking [that responsibility] off.”
She specifically mentioned that she would love to use the “like” and “leave a comment” features on various user-generated content platforms, including podcasts, because it would help train the recommendation algorithm and also allow her favourite content to be seen by more people. Also, she would like the platform to have a sign to show whether she is a “big fan” of a podcast.
“So if you were told you’d listened to the podcast for 100 hours, would you want to pay for it to mark the occasion?” I asked.
“Probably would.”