Keeping The Indie Spirit Alive As Podcasting Grows

We're back from Podcast Movement in New York with thoughts on its new format, the talks we loved, and why some of our favorite moments happened outside the conference. We talk about what independent podcasters need from these events and what we'd do differently if Buzzsprout were to host one.

We also go behind the scenes of an industry effort to tackle bot traffic. With AI bots impersonating podcast apps and video files driving up hosting costs, we discuss how verifying apps could help protect real listeners, improve podcast stats, and keep hosting affordable.

Plus, Ira Glass's keynote gets us talking about what audio does especially well: helping us listen longer, judge less quickly, and connect with people we might otherwise dismiss.

Watch Podcast Movement sessions and keynotes on YouTube (still updating as of publish date)

Things That Podcasts Do Better, Ira Glass

What 42,000 Consumers Told Us About Podcasting, Tom Webster

Send us Fan Mail: Has a podcast ever changed your mind about a person or an idea? 

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Transcript

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Beta Testers And Backup Rules

Jordan 0:00

All right, Kevin, how many people have written in asking to take part in our remote recording session? Beta tester group. How many sacrifices do we have?

Kevin 0:15

We got a good response. I was really I was really happy to see a lot of fan mail came in. Um, I think I let 13 in yesterday. You put the list together for me, which was super helpful. Thank you for doing that. And I let everyone in that Jordan put on the list. And since then, I think another one or two have asked. So uh I will tell you, I built a little admin tool to see how people are using it. And yesterday we had a couple, couple um like look like test sessions, look like people are running little tests, but no one has it. Doesn't look to me anyway, like anyone has recorded a episode with a guest yet. And so um that's okay. Less than 24 hours than from when I let everybody in.

Alban 0:58

I would argue we would have greater success if we didn't call them sacrifices, Jordan. When you say like I'm just keeping it real.

Speaker 3 1:07

It's not like this. We our experience has been we haven't lost a recording ever.

Alban 1:14

It like we redid one because one of our cameras freaked out, but it wasn't even session that did it. And we've been using this for, I don't know, six full months. We're not in sacrifice zone. We're in, we're a pretty good photographer. We know we can shoot weddings. We've shot a bunch of family weddings. We're gonna shoot some weddings for people outside the family to keep our wedding analogy going.

Jordan 1:35

For yeah, I was gonna say, for someone who has not listened to last week's quick cast about this, that's probably like way out of left field. Like, what is Ellen talking about? But yeah, we we talked in the last uh episode. If you want to go back and listen to it, we do like a little bit more of a deep dive. But session is the remote recording app that Kevin has worked on, and we've got people testing it out. So if you miss that, write in our fan mail. Let us know.

Kevin 2:00

And just to reiterate, we wouldn't uh ask anyone to test something that we didn't have a lot of confidence in. So our confidence level is high. It's just not a hundred percent yet. And so we are asking that if you are beta testing it and you're you're giving a shot that you also run a backup too, because I don't know, we don't want anybody losing their recordings. That's the whole point of the software is to be as reliable as possible. But while we're making sure it's reliable, then you need to be running a backup. And hopefully we get to the point where we say, hey, backups aren't even that important anymore because it is really reliable. That's what we're aiming for.

Jordan 2:30

Yeah.

Alban 2:31

Though I would say I'm not running a backup, I haven't run a backup on this in months. So we're we we feel confident.

Kevin 2:39

And it's like I'm the car manufacturer, and I'm like, still wear your seatbelt. Alvin's like, I don't wear seatbelts. This car's great, it drives itself.

Jordan 2:47

You know what's crazy is the whole time that we have done this show, well, that I've been on the show with you. I have always, even if we're recording on like some sort of like web software or something like that, I have always recorded directly onto my roadcaster because sometimes, like, I don't know, we we would just have things happen sometimes. And like, yeah, I've also just been jumping without the parachute for a while. And it's great.

Alban 3:15

No seatbelts, no airbags. Let's go.

Back From Podcast Movement NYC

Jordan 3:25

Welcome back to BuzzCast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We are back from our trip to New York City for Podcast Movement, and I thought we would kind of fill you in on what that was like because this is the first year that Sounds profitable has taken over Podcast Movement and they did things a little bit differently. So yeah.

Kevin 3:46

Yeah, this will be great. And you guys can uh inform me along with any listeners out there at the same time because I wasn't able to attend. You guys got to go to New York. I got to go to Texas because I have a daughter in college and I did Parents' Weekend.

Jordan 4:00

Oh, that's cool.

Kevin 4:01

Was great, but was not podcasting related. So I think we should talk about what you guys did last week instead of me.

Jordan 4:08

Okay, maybe post show.

Alban 4:10

Podcast movement this year was very different. One of the things, the big trend we've seen in Podcast Movement from 2014 when we first went, and the very first one is this is a Kickstarter of like a few friends and people who were like, I really like podcasts. And they all got together to share tips like, Hey, how do you record? What are you using? Oh, here what are your favorite episodes? And it was very like a very niche community, and it got more professional over the years, really led by that uh Podcast Movement team that they kind of had the whole time as they got more professional and more money came into the ecosystem, and there were more ad buyers and more products built. It kept getting better and better. Uh then we hit COVID, and it was like every influencer started a podcast. And we got influencers and we got big money and Spotify and YouTube and Amazon and everything floods the space. And it was like with way more money, there are a lot of benefits because you know, people that we knew we saw do really, really well. But we also saw like some of the creators graduate definitely quotes around that, graduate, move away from podcasting because they got so attracted to YouTube or something else. And I feel like I don't know if this isn't the right word either, but we kind of lost a bit of the summer camp vibe. But the part of it that was always still working was um the big companies were still there doing announcements, there's money coming in from the ad buyers, people still needed to connect at an industry level. And so Sounds Profitable came in and said, look, kind of like we're gonna try to split this a bit. We're gonna do industry one for two days and we're gonna do creators for two days. And so we only went for the two creator days. My takeaway was even the two creator days, they still felt very uh supportive of kind of like that top one percent of podcasters.

Jordan 6:12

And in what way?

Alban 6:13

I did not meet a podcaster with like a truly off-the-wall wild idea.

Jordan 6:19

We want the weird podcast.

Alban 6:21

We want the weird podcast back. And I didn't talk to I I think I just missed some of like the the spark of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're doing a podcast about that. Tell me this wild idea. Um, hey, people are kind of hacking together these dis different systems. It was much more professional, which professional is a good thing. It's growing up, it's a healthy industry. Um, but most of the people I'm meeting are really big podcasters, you know, millions of followers on YouTube and Instagram, uh, people who are doing very well with their shows, who are there like I'm here because my business manager, some of them have business managers, is here trying to meet with advertisers. Big advertisers were there the whole time. And so there's part of me that just is like, I'm so proud of what this industry has become. And also went, I don't know if I personally have to be here. I like it, I like the people, I know that they're filling an important need, but the very best two moments for me were when we went to the bar with the PSP meeting and we met with everybody who's working on a lot of our competitors, a lot of people working on indie apps, and we got together. And then later on, we met up and did a bus brought meetup, and about I'd say at least a third, if not more, of the people who came to that meetup were bus brought podcasters who are not at Podcast Movement.

Jordan 7:51

They always right because they were just in the area.

Alban 7:54

Right. So we sent out like the day before, Megan goes, I'm just gonna send out an email to everybody in New York City. New York City is a big city, so there's lots of people, and they go, Oh, free meetup, free drinks, easier sell than buy a ticket to an event. But we still got a lot of people who showed up and said, I hadn't heard about Podcast Movement. I'm I don't really do the conferences, but I do love connecting with podcasters. And so I'm kind of been wrestling this last week about I really want to make sure we keep that stuff, but at the same time, you know, it's it's a lot to fly out and set up and do a few days in hotels and awake time away from family, and Jordan gets stuck for two days trying to fly home. It's really good. And if somebody, if I was a big podcaster, I'm like a top 1.1 percenter, I would absolutely be going to Podcast Movement. I'd be sending my business manager to Podcast Movement. We'd be going to all the sessions and we'd be trying to meet the Apple Podcast team. I don't know, 2027. I could see being the first year that I personally didn't go.

Jordan 8:56

Interesting. Yeah, I I really liked what they did where they split it up into uh two to two separate events as well. I thought that was great. I also quite enjoyed having a two-day conference. That was fantastic.

Alban 9:09

Massive. That's a that was a huge win. I should have huge win.

Jordan 9:13

Yes. Especially because now there's like less sessions because you don't have all the sessions that are like not applicable to independent creators. And so one of the things that um I really struggled with was that this kind of felt like if you were like an antisocial vampire, this would have been the perfect podcast conference for you because it was dark and it was edgy and it was moody and like kind of seedy. But at the same time, but you have to explain this a little bit.

Alban 9:44

You're talking about the venue. The venue was a concert venue. Yeah.

Jordan 9:48

It was a concert venue. And it was, it was so cool for the Instagram. Like I took some awesome pictures, but the practicality of it was like non existent. It was because, like Kevin, actually, you might have liked this because if you stood in like a certain area, you would just kind of like vanish into the shadows and like no one was seeing you and talk to you. So it was like I struggle with seeing in the dark. And so this was a big problem for me. And I'm sure that like there may have been buzzcast listeners that were like waving, like, and I couldn't see them. I don't know. Um, but it was just it was kind of weird trying to like navigate the space without like two senses because you couldn't see and you also couldn't hear A, because it was just like a cacophony of sound. Like the it was so loud. And then if you didn't have the sound, you had the noise canceling headphones on that had like the sessions going on in them.

Speaker 3 10:48

And so have you ever been to a concert? Like I have, it's not like that hard to see.

Jordan 10:54

I'm telling you, I have okay, maybe it's just I'm getting old, but like my vision has gotten so bad in the dark, it's crazy. So it was so hard, but that was that was my only complaint from the event, other than that. It was really cool.

Kevin 11:12

But my only complaint, I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything. Everything I felt like a vampire dark shadows. Smelled great.

Speaker 3 11:22

I'm sure uh Brian Barletta and the team are just clipping that right now to post on the website.

Kevin 11:26

They're like, oh, that's only complaint. The only podcast conference where you can't see or hear almost anything.

Alban 11:33

I did have one moment where I saw Caitlin from across the room who listens to Buzzcast, and like I couldn't really see her very well. And I saw someone waved at me, and I'm like, who is that? I can't read their name tag, I can't really see their face. And then I like a walk around and like, oh, hey. There are three talks at the conference that I really, really enjoyed. Um they said they're gonna post them all. I haven't seen them get posted yet. So when these are up, I will make sure we put them in the newsletter and like highlight them as I think everybody who's an indie podcaster should listen to see at least two, if not three of them. Tom Webster did a talk at the beginning, and he's really talking about how people are consuming podcasts and they just they do good research on it. And Tom is such a good speaker. Yes, he's a good writer, and I think being such a good writer makes him such a good speaker on stage. So that was a really good talk. Really just talking about consumption habits, how they're changing, and as an industry, how we can be better about supporting indie podcast apps, apps that make podcasting front and center rather than apps that are YouTube and Netflix, which are there a lot of people are using for podcasts now, but podcasts are not the draw. We want to be the draw. Um that was very good. I l saw an awesome talk with James Cridlin where he went through the history of podcasting and it was so much fun. Uh he's pulling in all these old clips, all of these old interviews, audio, and he's got stuff going back 70 years in this, and it was so interesting. I learned a lot.

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Jordan 13:49

I think he made the argument that the first podcast may have been in like don't give it away.

Speaker 3 13:54

Don't give it away. Spoiler alert.

Jordan 13:57

It's not a spoiler alert.

(Cont.) Back From Podcast Movement NYC

Jordan 13:58

Yeah, I heard him tell someone about that.

Speaker 3 14:01

But after he gave the talk, yeah, maybe I thought that that was a great one.

Alban 14:07

I really am gonna recommend it. And the third, Jordan, you gave the best talk. I was so impressed. The best talk of the whole conference? I mean, I think all three of these were very, very good. So remember, first yeah, we're all winners. I'm trying to think through. Tom has given some talks that were really, really good over the years. Besides some of Tom's talks, yours was definitely the best buzzprout talk that I've ever seen. I was so impressed.

Speaker 2 14:36

Thank you.

Alban 14:37

You took a topic that I was not as sold on, and I was like, okay, we're talking about calls to action. We did an episode on it. It was good. I'm not sure I see how this is a full conference talk, and it was so good to the extent that I said to Tom, man, that's better than if Jordan and I did an episode on it. I think I need to talk less on BuzzCast.

Jordan 15:02

I appreciate that so much. I mean, it was it's I got some really good feedback on that talk. But one of the things that happened was uh we were at a diner. It was late at night, and I was sitting next to Tom, and he turned and he was talking about it. And he said, you know what was really amazing was like everyone who went to that talk got to experience Jordan. And when he said that, I was trying so hard not to cry because that was like that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said.

Alban 15:31

Yeah, you would have loved it, Kevin. It was very, it felt like a solo buzzcast. Jordan just got up, she has a really good presentation. Your slides, excellent. I love the slides. And Jordan's walking through and it's funny, and he's just like in the flow and got a bunch of laughs. It's hard to get laughs with those uh kind of when you're wearing the headphones to listen to the talk. And you still have multiple spots with like genuine laughs. So I really hope they post it because I want to send it out to all of our podcasters.

Jordan 16:03

I'm I'm sure they will, and I'll link to it in the show notes. I'll link to all these talks actually in the show notes too. So we're gonna have lots of recommended watching.

Kevin 16:11

You guys have my head spinning. I mean, I have I've beat this drum to the point where I can't beat it anymore, but I've said for many years that

Could Buzzsprout Host A Conference

Kevin 16:19

I'm very interested in figuring out if Buzzsprout had the opportunity to put on our own conference, what would it look like? And you guys have so many good thoughts and it and ideas around what makes a conference good versus not good. And we have obviously one of the greatest speakers on the Buzzsprout staff. It's just gonna happen at some point. At some point, there's gonna be some type of Buzzsprout podcast conference. And at the same time, the the biggest podcast conference, at least the biggest US podcast conference, Podcast Movement, is changing and changing in a way that it's it's good for some, but it's not good for everybody. And so there might be an opportunity for people who maybe liked some of the old ways of doing things.

Jordan 17:01

You know, I'm seeing a lot more of these kind of intimate micro conferences.

Speaker 2 17:07

Yeah.

Jordan 17:07

These Podcast Movements where you have huge venues and it's super expensive, but it's like a good time. Like those are great, but man, these these small ones are really cool. And so I don't know. I wonder if we would do something like that, or like um, you know how the Jax Podcasters United did the summer camp thing? Like they did like the podcast camp, and it was just like a one-day thing that was so cool.

Alban 17:31

I really like the Podcast Movement this year was two days. I'm mostly by the end of it, kind of like exhausted, and it's just like I've been talking and talking and talking. I'm ready to go home. Two days in and it's wrapping up, you are left wanting more. And I think one two-day conferences are probably the sweet spot. And I like them being a bit more focused. I think the Sounds Profitable Business Summit especially has gotten so much better for the people it's for. The hey, you want to learn about the ads part of the industry, you want to connect with other executives, you want to be hearing from the really advanced creators. I mean, there are a lot of big name people who went to those two days. You have to be a sounds profitable member to go. I think that's gotten better and better. There might be a little bit of space for us to do something that's like it's one to two days, it's entirely focused on indie creators. We're probably gonna need to keep costs down, and we're also not gonna make any money, we're gonna lose money on it. But we're getting everybody together and we're celebrating this medium we love because it's not a medium that allows us to post 700 clips on social and get a big deal from uh BetterHelp and you know, ZipRecruiter or whatever. We love it because it allows people who probably have a day job to go hit record, record a cool message, get it out to the world, and connect with people who share their interest and who they want to communicate with. And I just don't think there's a ton of money in that space. And so it might end up being underserved for a long time. Um podfest is kind of try to step into this, but even I think they know it's a it's difficult to do, which might mean that for someone to do it, it kind of needs to be this is a bit of a labor of love. It might be something that we could step into. I don't know. I I think it's worth we've talked about it 10 times. I think maybe the 11th time, uh, I might have to say yes. Another reason that's gotten me a bit more okay with this idea is the Sounds Profitable team, the Podcast Movement team, they would fire me if I worked for them because I know this is not my calling, is like me organizing everything and planning it. And so whenever Kevin says it, I was always so resistant because I'm like, I would be happy to talk. I'd love to go, I'd love to help um think through what a talk should be like, but like all the logistics, I don't I don't get life from that. And then Serena doing she's been doing a lot more planning stuff um for stuff at the office. She's on the success team, has been doing more with this. Megan Megan planning our meetup and all the stuff that we're going to conferences, she doesn't even attend, she's planned it out to the minute, got everything planned out. It works, it goes so smoothly, got so much better since I stopped doing that work and she started doing it. And Priscilla planning our company retreats, those are going really well. I'm like, this is a gifting that some people have and others don't. And all three of them do very well with it. I could see us running a conference that um, you know, I always imagine I'd be doing like fire festival podcast edition and I would just not do well.

Jordan 21:02

Bread with like cheese on it.

Kevin 21:05

I feel like there's a podcast conference that are it's already the equivalent of that. I'm not gonna say the name of the conference, but I'm pretty sure we all know which one I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 21:13

Oh have you both have seen the fire festival documentary, right?

Kevin 21:18

Yes. I and I live it every year when I try to go to some podcast conferences. All right, Albert, you mentioned there was also a uh PSP, the podcast standards project meeting that took place during Podcast Movement, right? Yes. Tell me what what happened there, what was discussed?

Alban 21:35

Uh lots of stuff. Um, so just you weren't there and Justin

PSP Updates On AI And Video

Alban 21:39

Jackson wasn't there. So Alberto from RSS.com and Tom from Buzzsprout really kind of led that meeting. A few things we talked about were AI disclosures. Um, Alberto did some cool stuff trying to help people figure out if you are legally required to disclose, if you live, I think California now is passing something. Uh European Union has some. Whether or not you need to disclose, he built a tool um talking about trying to get that tag possibly adopted. Uh we talked about location tag. He built another proof of concept, somebody RSS built it, uh, where you could kind of like zoom around a globe and zoom in and see hey, what podcasts are in each location. It was a cool demo. Uh but the thing we talked about the most was. Video. And you just get the sense like everybody is kind of feeling their way through video, trying to figure out what does this look like? What does the business model look like? Tom really kind of led this conversation around and how do we watch out for the abuse. Um, because we're kind of like, I mean, we've said this before on the show. At the same moment that our, you know, the files for podcasts got, you know, 10, 50x larger because we added video, we also have 10, 50x the amount of abuse because everybody in the world thinks they're about to vibe code the next next amazing podcast thing, and they're hitting everybody's feeds and they have no clue what they're doing, and we're dealing with a ton of abuse. And Tom had this proposal, and it seemed to get a bit more traction during PSP about getting podcast apps to verify who they are. Pretty much everything is always worked through user agents, which are just kind of like putting a name tag on. It says like, hey, I'm Alban, but like anybody can put a name tag on that says Alban. And the equivalent would be Tom saying, sometimes when it's a really big video file, I might ask to check your ID. Like, I want to like some level of verification. Could we get on board? And it sounds like Pocket Casts and Buzzsprout were gonna do a bit of a proof of concept. What would it look like for us to verify um they are who they say they are? The big reason this is important is obviously for all the uh blocking all of the abuse, but for us, it's actually almost the opposite because we already block the abuse. It's that sometimes when we are blocking an IP address that's attacking our servers and hitting it a thousand times a second, there's real people who also use like a VPN and they try to go through the exact same IP address at the same time. And then somehow 100% of them all find their way to Reddit to complain. And we're like, we want to help you out, man. But you're using a VPN that is getting slammed right now, and unfortunately, the world is gonna get even worse for VPNs because everybody's vibe coding apps that don't know what they're using and they're using VPNs. So the answer will be when the apps can say, Hey, I've got a real person here. I am who I say I am. You can verify it. We go, well, now we know 100% we will allow this traffic every time. We're not gonna block it. We will always make sure you get through. And the experience should be for people who, whether or not you're using a VPN, you're watching video, whatever you're doing, if you're a person, we never want to block you, no matter what app you're using.

Kevin 25:11

Okay, that's good. Yeah, I I I'm familiar with that discussion and what's going on there. Uh uh let me add a little bit of insight for anybody who's interested, and I'll try not to get too far into it. But the the argument is basically what Alvin said, apps being able to verify they are who they say they are in certain circumstances. Uh, the technology to do that uh is available. We just have kind of have to choose a path and go down it. The upside of that are twofold. One, our stats get a lot better. When overcast reports to our server that it is overcast, and we then can have assurance that it's overcast and not just a claw bot pretending to be overcast, then we know that that is actual, that's like a verified download. That's more real. We know that a real human is on the end of that because we can verify with technology that it is actually who it says it is. So that's that's very cool. The other thing is that it helps contain costs. There are costs involved in hosting podcasts. And some of what you pay for when you pay for a premium podcast hosting solution, or even when you're on a free host and they're uh offsetting their costs by selling ads, all of that money has to go to pay for one of the big things it goes to pay for is bandwidth. And so the the more that we can constrain the costs that we're spending to be able to serve up the media that you're trying to deliver to humans and not bots, the more affordable that we can make this for everybody. So two huge, really smart reasons to pursue this stuff. The arguments against it, like one is privacy, but we're not asking for any individual to be identified. We're asking for the agent to be identified. So, like, we want to know that Overcast is requesting the file, not that Kevin is requesting the file. So privacy is not, I don't think, a huge concern. It's easy to um make sure that we're protecting privacy while we implement stuff like this. But the other one is that like old school uh podcasters, especially old school podcasters, don't like this idea of, hey, I'm I want to be able to create a file and put it out on the internet and make it open and available to everyone. The idea that you would then only serve it to people who meet your criteria, who um you ask for verification and then you ask for ID, and then they say, Okay, here's my ID. Not people who are like, you asked for my ID, and I'm like, hey, who are you to ask for my ID? Just give me the file. I don't need to identify myself to you. Um that is a turn off.

Alban 27:29

I mean, me too. I don't, yeah, I don't the original promise is distribute it and people can find it no matter where they get their podcasts.

Jordan 27:37

Yeah.

Alban 27:38

That's the beauty of podcasting. Right. In the interim, what's happened is bots find it. They tell us you're a bot. Sometimes they get blocked. Somebody told me that they did this. They said, I created a bot, it got blocked by Buzzsprout. And I said, Oh, is there a better way? And it goes, Yeah, I just told Buzzsprout it was overcast, download work. Right. And I'm like, exactly. And then what happens is when we get the abuse and it says overcast on it, we go, all right. So that's now one of the factors we're using to identify abuse. Well, that's really bad for overcast because we have to block it. Yeah. And every single one that gets blocked is a real person. Like we'd never want to do that. We should commit to, and obviously we would commit to this. I'm committing us to this right now. The goal, it's never going to be blocking apps we don't like and people we don't like. It's blocking bots and allowing people to get the the content. The whole point is that the people can always get it.

Kevin 28:38

Yeah, it's it's a tough one though, because once the controls are in place, you can't guarantee that anybody uh would not abuse the controls. So it is possible that somebody that runs a hosting service decides that they don't like a particular app for a particular reason and now they have a method to always block them.

Alban 28:53

This happens with email right now, Kevin. Like a webmaster in North Dakota who services a hundred email, uh million email addresses can say, huh, all this buzzprout stuff looks like spam, and they can just turn it off.

Kevin 29:06

Right.

Alban 29:07

And then now you actually have to find out who this guy is. Yeah. Or postmaster, not uh, I don't know if I said webmaster, postmaster.

Kevin 29:14

Well, we don't want to get too far into the technical specifics of it on this show because that's not necessarily why people listen. It's not what we talk about. But I will give you the optimistic outlook is that there is some technology that looks very promising and it sort of addresses all the issues on all sides. And it also gives us the ability to step into this technology in a way that is optional. So like apps can identify themselves optionally, hosts can ask for identity optionally, and at least you could roll it out in that way where, hey, like we might ask for your identity, and if you provide it, great. If you don't, we might still serve you the file. Apps can say, hey, here's my identity. And a host could say, I have actually never asked for it. So I like I've I have no idea what to do with this. And it would still work. Um, and so at least that's like a a method for us to start building some of this technology and get it in place for those that want to participate, they can. And if you don't want to, you don't have to. And then over time we can see where it goes. Is it working well? And if so, we can keep pressing into it. And if it's not, and if some of the concerns and objections that people have raised proved to be true, at least it was all optional. So like everything still works whether you're using it or not. And so that's the way that from what I heard, that's sort of what's happening in the PSP is is we're trying to get people on board. And Buzzsprout is excited to be one of the first to say, hey, uh, we can handle the technology on the hosting side. Is there an app? And PocketCast has stepped up and said, hey, we can handle it from the app side. Let's work together, let's do a proof of concept, let's show everybody on both sides what's possible, and then hopefully build some exciting excitement and momentum around it. And again, like I said, I think it would be great if we can really get this working. It could help contain hosting costs so that you can host with a professional podcast hosting a provider like Buzzsprout or any of our fine competitors, and those prices will be contained. Again, like video plans are gonna cost more money, but we don't want them to cost any more than they absolutely have to. And so controlling the number of bots that are downloading these big video files is a big part of that. And two, we all want the most accurate stats possible. And as long as agents and uh rogue apps or little third-party APIs and stuff can hit our files, like we are gonna have to try to keep trying to filter those things out. And they're getting better and better at faking, uh, pretending to be legitimate podcast apps, pretending to be humans. If we can get better at verifying you are who you actually say you are, you are a human when you're pretending to be a human, then we're gonna have better stats.

Alban 31:33

So my hot take is that the um some of the resistance we've seen is from people who don't want accurate stats. Yeah, you're probably not way off on that. The biggest controversy we had in podcasting in the last few years was everyone losing their mind. The Apple said, Hey, sometimes when people subscribe to a show, they don't even open the Apple Podcast app again. They just did it one time and they don't ever go back and listen. When we notice that behavior, they don't listen to like three or more episodes in a row. We will not auto-download.

Jordan 32:09

Yeah.

Alban 32:09

Which in my mind is we know they're not listening, uh, we're not gonna auto-download, but they can get it as soon as they go into the app. And the industry lost its mind because the ads sales went down. Well, the ad sales went down because people were selling ads on episodes that were never getting listened to. It's not a good world for us to charge better help and rocket mortgage and everybody else for ads that are being downloaded and never listened to. But that's what the that part of the industry was happy with. They're like, look, don't kill the magic. Well, I think let's get more and more accurate, and your CPMs should go way up. There's just a lot of shady stuff. As soon as there's ads, like people are gonna juice numbers in any way they can. And I I think as an industry, we should be doing our very best to curtail that. And so I was proud of Tom because he really doesn't have you know, we have buzzbread ads, we don't make any money on ads, we make very little money, we don't make some. Tom then is kind of freed up to go, hey, look, I've always cared about accuracy of stats. I've always wanted this to be as clean as it can, I've always wanted to keep costs down. It just aligns with what he wants to do in the industry and he's able to spearhead it. And even if other people have the same desire in their heart, it's gonna be very difficult for them to do it if they work for a giant podcast hosting company that is pretty much the tech isn't the special part, it's the ad sales that are the special part. It's gonna be hard for them to get that through because everyone in the back is gonna go, dude, if you're right and we start blocking five percent of traffic because it's bots, we're gonna lose five percent of our ad sales. Like you're we're not going to invest time in you figuring that out. So I think it is something that we and transistor and captivate, anybody who doesn't have a big ads team, we kind of need to be the ones spearheading it because we're kind of the ones who can spearhead it.

Kevin 34:13

Yeah, I mean, definitely a couple of those. I think I think Captivate is owned by Global, which owns DAX. So they might have some ad interest as well. I don't know. We'll see. Oh okay.

Alban 34:24

All right. Well, then we got to get together with transistor. There's got to be somebody else who isn't as reliant isn't relying on ad revenue. But like, I think that those of us that don't need to be the ones to spearhead this technology.

Kevin 34:39

Yeah, and I mean let's let's be real about it. We we know people at these companies, and Alban is not saying that they're doing anything shady. They're just not. The problem is that their interests are conflicted, they have conflicting interests, and so it's hard to set priorities. It's not that they don't want to be accurate, it's that the more accurate they are, that like that conflicts with the fact that they need to make their shows as popular as possible. And so it just puts them in an awkward, a difficult position to prioritize how do we make our stats more accurate at the same time we're trying to grow the shows. And everything this team does hurts this team. And everything this team does like seems the raises a bunch of concerns on this team. Oh, no, the the the numbers are growing as a result of our ad campaigns. Are you sure? Because you're running the ad campaign in this part of the world, but we're seeing downloads from this part of the world, and right, it gets messy.

Alban 35:27

I mean, I I talked to somebody who had moved a show over to I think ACAST, and they were like, Man, it's really not all that expensive. I actually, you know, I make money using ACAST. Like, yeah, you have a giant show, they sell ads for you. I could give you the pitch for a buzzprop, but I honestly don't know if it's the right move for you unless you are going to sell all your own ads. We're actually going to charge you way more money than ACast will. It's like there's just it's natural that your different profit centers, the way you make money, will lead to what kind of product you can build.

Jordan 36:02

Yeah.

Alban 36:03

They can't really invest a ton of money in loot in making stats go down so that they lose money. And conversely, I'm I can't really compete on price for somebody with a 10 million download show. That's okay. And it's good for the industry to have variety. And I like that Tom has taken up this charge. I agree.

Jordan 36:25

Well, and I love hearing about all this because there's so many, I mean, especially being in social media, you know, because you do see the people like running to Reddit and they're just like, ah, like uh these these podcast hosting companies, like they don't they don't care about the boss, they don't care about this thing. And then you hear that actually behind these, you know, closed doors at these like meetings, you're actually putting a lot of thought into it, more thought than I even knew about. I didn't know that there were so many different considerations that you had to take into account for how to approach problem solving this kind of issue. And it's really nice to like have it now because now I feel like when I do see someone, you know, online, and you know, our Buzzcast listeners can do the same thing too. Like if I do see someone online, now I am informed to say, well, actually, here's everything that they need to think about.

Alban 37:15

And a lot of people there were talking about we're doing our very best. Um, when we see a particular type of abuse, I guess there's some Slack channels where people will share and say, Hey, I'm seeing this. Is anyone else seeing it? And there's there's some back and forth. There are lots of ideas around this. They just are they come from a certain area in the industry, and I think that's good because that will benefit everybody in the long term. And yeah, if you're on Reddit and you get blocked, that stinks. We don't want that to happen anymore. I really, really hope we can fix it.

Jordan 37:48

Well, there's uh one other talk that I wanted to uh discuss on this episode, and it was because I had so many people. I didn't see this because

Ira Glass And Audio Intimacy

Jordan 37:56

we didn't go to the sounds profitable business summit, but or because you were able to see in the dark. Actually, this may have been a perfect one for me in that case, because what was so cool about this, it was um Ira Glass's uh keynote, the things that podcasts do better. And what was so notable about this that everyone just was like, oh my gosh, that was amazing, is Ira actually started the keynote completely in the dark. Like they they brought down the stage lights too. And so it was just pitch black. And so he started the keynote basically as a podcast. And he's talking about the power of audio and the intimacy of audio. And um, he played a clip from This American Life in which he he um he talked about how he had worked for a few months with these teens that were gang members like in Chicago. And what was so powerful about audio as like the medium of storytelling was that the teens that he interviewed, you know, he talked about interviewing a girl and she has like tattoos and she's like really rough around the edges and like black lipstick and like baggy clothes and stuff like that. And he said what was so cool is because it was audio, people weren't judging how she looked right off the bat. They were able to like listen. And I just thought that was such a great point is that you don't have that bias of like the second you see somebody that you're gonna go, I'm probably not gonna relate to this person, or um, I don't know, just having some sort of like someone who would like typically judge, maybe even if it's subconsciously. But listening to her audio, it reminded me of my daughter who was also 14, is also 14. And like, I don't know, it's just it's so cool.

Alban 39:48

That is a very creative idea starting in the dark, especially with somebody with a voice. I think if I saw Iraglass, I would recognize him, but probably not 100% if I heard this as Iraglass chapter one, and like he does like that, and it's not very good. Iraglass in first nation, but if I heard his voice, I would know his voice. And I love the idea of starting in the dark.

Jordan 40:12

Well, what was also funny was that I noticed when he did eventually bring up the stage lights because he made his point about, you know, um, the power of audio. I immediately was less engaged than I was at the beginning of the YouTube video where it was like all black and I was just listening to it and I was listening to the storytelling. And then when the lights came on, I immediately was like, oh, that's Ara Glass. What does he look like? Oh, his hair looks good. Oh, what what's his outfit? Is that a Molski notebook that he's holding on to? I wonder if he wrote his notes for this. My my brain went to that instead of actually listening to what he was talking about.

Alban 40:47

I've probably said this before too, but there have been times that I've noticed I think I'm a bit more judgmental than I thought because I'll listen to a podcast for a long time and then I see the host and I'm like, I don't like this guy. And I was like, wait, I liked him before. And I was like, I think I'm like a bit more judgmental than I would have thought. And it's kind of a positive thing about podcasting that it kind of you get a real experience of, oh, I can maybe be a little bit calmer on the judgments for a bit longer and just listen to people rather than jumping in with like a oh, I think I figured this out.

Kevin 41:20

We need to do this at our podcast conference. We need to set up like love is blind type uh studio booths where people can go in and talk to each other, but they can't see each other, and then they can walk out and socialize afterward. But you can have a lot of conversations in a lot of these love is blind booths at the podcast conference.

Jordan 41:37

Pot is blind.

Kevin 41:38

Pot is blind. I love the uh podcasting matchmaking idea that you're gonna be. Oh my gosh. Oh, I didn't even I didn't even say we could do matchmaking too. That just opens the we're gonna sell so many tickets to this thing.

Jordan 41:51

Wait, wait, hold on.

Speaker 3 41:52

Have either of you watched Love is Blind? This is the show that proves love is not blind.

Alban 41:57

You get a bunch of like models who also want to be like influencers, get them to and get for some reason get engaged with them like four days.

Kevin 42:05

We're we're gonna have a wedding at the end of this conference. Oh man, it's a two-day conference, but stick around for day three if you want to come to the wedding.

Jordan 42:16

But but no, you could do that. You could do that for like maybe like guest matching. We could partner with Podmatch for Pod is Blind.

Alban 42:24

Oh, yes, for sure. Pod is Blind.

Jordan 42:28

I think Alex would be so on board for this. Um, so he also went on about podcasting's like influence because of how powerful audio is. It also is very like influential. We did the episode about how basically podcasting won the presidency. They started that trend with that election, and now even people who are running for like state representation are starting to go on these huge podcasts.

Alban 42:57

I mean, it definitely felt like it in what is it 2024 when Trump went on like every podcast he could. There is something different when you can see somebody for hours and hours talk through an idea. Um, you know, Bernie Sanders went on Joe Rogan. And like if you listen to it and you go, Oh, I kinda I understand so much more about you as a person. You can have a totally different level of comfort with a candidate when you've not just heard like their 20-second sound bite, you've now gotten an idea of who they are as an individual. And it feels more authentic to us. I obviously am in favor of more and more politicians and more people of you know any level of influence going on. Express your ideas. I think it will help us be better judges of character and determining who do we want, you know, leading the country, leading companies, all sorts of things. Even if right now it's mostly just like people get on and it looks like popularity. I think overall we will be benefited by more people sharing why they're getting into stuff to begin with.

Jordan 44:03

I think it's a benefit to just being humans and existing together, because you know, there is some people that I mean, here we go again. Like I might judge based on whatever like I see on media or social media. And then they get on a podcast and I actually listen to them as a person, like even if I disagree um on like some of their political points or their beliefs or something like that. You listen to them and you're like, oh, this is a person. Like, I would probably sit down, have a lunch with this person, and we'd get along great. And I just think it's really cool that it's such like a deep medium where you can really get to know somebody past these like talking points of the campaign. You know what I mean? Like it just it gets you such a deeper understanding and like empathy for people.

Alban 44:52

I I actually had this the other day listening to an interview with uh uh mayor momdani in New York and like the clips I don't like. And then I see this long form thing and he just had a bit about you know, if we can't fix all the potholes in New York, no one's ever gonna trust us to fix bigger issues. And government needs to show people we can show up in the small ways and do the right thing if we ever want to be able to do bigger things. And like when he talked about why he wants he's on this, I guess, like we're fixing every pothole thing. You hear that and I go, that makes sense. I love where your heart is in it. I think you're right. And you like get so much more, uh it just feels much better than if I'd have gone on and just watched some like cable news that was just gonna yell at me one way or the other, like, this is the greatest thing ever, this is the worst thing ever. And I have no real insight to what the candidate and the person wants to accomplish.

Kevin 45:52

It's sort of in contrast to a lot of the criticism that podcasts typically get. I think podcasting, unfortunately, has gotten a bit of a reputation that's that's really unfair in that it's a it's a source of a lot of misinformation. Yeah. And it's a it's a bunch of people who just get together and just share their ideas, but they're there's nothing is fact-checked. Like you have no idea how crazy somebody is and sharing these wild ideas, and they could be polluting your brain and poisoning your outlook and all this other kind of stuff. But the other side of the argument is exactly what the two of you are saying. Like as a medium, we're not going and flooding social channels with a bunch of viral clips. You're giving somebody an opportunity to sit down and listen to somebody for an extended period of time and then draw their own conclusions about do I believe in what they say? Does it sound reasonable? Uh if they bring up anything that doesn't sound right, like I could always look that up or explore that more later. But I'm not going to get sucked in with like a sound bite that just sounds good in the moment, but actually has a lot of dangerous or bad stuff behind it. The fact that it's long form, the fact that not only are they talking about maybe their political position on something, but also sharing some stuff from their personal life gives you insight into maybe why they think about something the way that they think about it. I mean, now we're just talking about why podcasting is great, but we all agree on it. It it is great. And I do think there's there's a bit of um uh not fair, maybe some of the raps that people have kind of positioned podcasting into this negative space of uh it's just mis misinformation or it's just uneducated people talking about things they really don't know about. Absolutely, some of that exists, but the the positive side is that you also get a lot more context around that stuff.

Jordan 47:36

I mean, it's similar to us covering the PSP meeting and saying, like, okay, here's all the thoughts that we have behind like blocking this bot traffic, and here's the things that we're going through. So someone who is frustrated with, you know, maybe their uh their podcast host struggling with the same issue, they may have a deeper understanding and like more grace for that host, too.

Alban 48:01

Yeah. They also might accurately say, Alban said some misinformation there, you got something wrong, he didn't say that correctly, misspoke somewhere. Like the problem with uh misinformation are the people who are saying it. Like, but the people problem we can't solve. But when you get a bit more exposure to somebody and you can listen to them for 45 minutes plus, it's it becomes easier, not a hundred percent of the time, but it becomes easier to spot the outright frauds. And there are people who can sound really great in 120 characters on Twitter and you think this person's really smart, and you talk to them in person and you go, Oh, interesting. You do not strike me as authentic as all at all. And that's happened to me quite a few times. As soon as I see the podcast or I listen to the podcast, I go, I'm surprised that I was so interested in this person's tweets. I think the longer form we get, the deeper we engage with ideas, the better off we are. Um, but that doesn't mean like you should be firing up any podcast that says like, here's the number one way to cure cancer. And imagine, like for sure, the people on there know what they're talking about. There's nutty people everywhere online. And like you do want to keep your guard up a bit because there's people who have all sorts of ideas.

Jordan 49:20

Yeah. I would really love for our listeners to uh watch these keynotes and to watch the sessions that we talked about. It's like 10 to 20 minutes for each one. I think there's just like a handful, but I'll link to all of them. I think the Podcast Movement ones will be out by the time this episode comes out, so I'm sure I'll be in the show notes.

Alban 49:41

All right. For FanMill this week, I want to try something a little bit different. We all talked about, you know, the benefits of long form, the benefits of audio first, not being as quick to judge. I would like if people have examples to share them with us, you know, what is like a way that a podcast changed your mind, or there was somebody you didn't like or you did like and you changed your opinion. I'd love for you to share that with us. For this one, I think if you want it to be anonymous in some way, you can. If it feels like embarrassing to have changed your mind about it. But like I think it'd be really interesting to have a few stories of engaging with an idea with like a bit more context, learn a little bit longer, I think does lead to better outcomes.

Jordan 50:28

And this might be kind of fun to actually hear it in their own words and have them leave voicemails so we can hear them discuss it in audio format. All right. So to send those in, go ahead and tap the send us fan mail link in the show notes. And until next time, thanks for listening and keep podcasting. Are you guys ready for our next trip? You ready to get back on a train on a plane?

Kevin 50:56

We we

Post Show: Travel Tips

Kevin 50:57

don't we don't have any trips.

Alban 50:58

I think we do.

Jordan 50:59

I think it's November actually, so it's not next month.

Alban 51:01

Oh, I'm I'm gonna drive. I think I'm I'm ready to take a break from traveling. I feel like I've been traveling a bunch. You know, my my brother-in-law, he travels a ton for work and he's going to places that are not fun. And I'm like even flying to New York for Podcast Movement, like cool city, cool thing to do. Sometimes when I get home, I'm like, I don't need to leave this city for a while. I'm happy to be like at home a bit more and drive. I don't know. Do you ever feel that way?

Jordan 51:28

I I did this weekend. Like I had that moment of like, I don't want to see an airplane again for like a month when I go back out again. But I think, I think for me it's more frustrating because Boise is a very small airport and there's not a lot of flights in and out. And so I actually ran into an issue coming back from New York where there was a huge um storm in Chicago. And so I was gonna miss my connection, my connecting flight. And I went up to the lady and she said, Um, I don't have any flights to Boise this weekend. And I was like, What? And she's like, No, we don't have any flights. I'm like, well, I can fly anywhere, like because I'm going to have Lagordy. I'm like, I could fly to like Dallas, Phoenix, like there's usually like a Denver connection. And she's like, no, we have nobody going in and out of uh Idaho. And I was just like, are you kidding me? And I was like, if I'm stuck in New York for two more freaking days, like I'm gonna lose it. So yeah, I think uh it's just it's rough.

Kevin 52:30

I'm with you. I would, I would prefer to drive almost any distance. Like if it's as long as I don't have to like stop and get a hotel on the way, I'm probably in for driving because air travel is so unpredictable with weather and equipment issues and staffing and all that kind of stuff. I will say I just I just traveled this weekend and I was traveling with my wife, and we are just very, very different travelers. We usually get along, we rarely fight, but if we're gonna fight, it's going to be travel related and mostly in an airport. And it did happen this weekend. Our flight got delayed, and I'm like, okay, no problem, because we were in Dallas. I'm like, they have a lounge there, let's just go to the lounge, we'll relax, it'll be fine. Um, we get to the lounge, and they do like, uh did they delay our flight again? I can't remember. But she's nervous. Like, we just got to the lounge and she's like, our flight board's in like an hour 15. I can't go in the lounge. It's like, what are you talking? We have an hour 15. She's like, I can't risk it. I can't risk missing. Let's go to let's go to the gate. I'm like, I'm not going to the gate. But if you want to go to the gate.

Speaker 3 53:33

So you gotta go check to make sure the gate's there.

Alban 53:36

I don't know why. It just feels good. You're like, that's where, oh, 16's right after seven's audit. Okay, I've got it. That's her.

Kevin 53:44

And so we parted ways, and I went into the lounge and she went to the gate. And then my daughter's texting me, why did you leave mom? I was like, I did not leave mom. She left me. But she left me. But evidently what got communicated to my daughter was that I left her at the airport by herself, and she's got to find this gate. And your dad's in the lounge, and who knows what he's doing in the lounge.

Speaker 2 54:07

Whatever.

Kevin 54:10

Anyway, we both made the flight on time. I got a barbecue sandwich from the lounge and was very relaxed stepping onto the plane. She was very frustrated that I left her, evidently.

Speaker 1 54:21

Traveling.

Jordan 54:22

Is that your like what you do to make traveling more fun is just like chill in the lounge. Separate from your stuff. Is that her travel tip?

Kevin 54:32

I hate it. I hate traveling. And so the the the bet the best I can do is just be like, like, I'm just gonna roll with whatever. Like, flight gets delayed, like, yeah, flight got delayed. Like, I'm not gonna get anxious or upset about that. And uh my wife, on the other hand, is like, she's her way of way of dealing with that stress and anxiety is to like let it just ramp up more and more and more.

Alban 54:54

I feel like the last few years I've started coming up with like new travel tips. I don't know if you guys do this. Uh this feels like very podcasty content. Like, what do you guys do to make travel better? Do you guys have any rules? Do you have any tips, things that you try?

Kevin 55:11

I mean, I travel now uh lighter than ever. I think the the less things I'm bringing with me on the plane, I'm that makes it a little bit better for me. Um, I've sort of embraced this idea of if there's something I really need, chances are I can probably get it there if I forget it. I always book a window seat. That helps me personally. I don't love the idea of like small talking with a neighbor. And so having, I don't know, something interesting to look out and watch as we take off, and hopefully it's a clear day. And I don't know, like it just in trying to enjoy the stuff on the trip makes it a little bit better for me. But I I I really hate the idea of you know being in a confined space with a bunch of strangers for a long period of time. That part of travel I don't know how to get over. Do you have any tips on how I can make that part better?

Jordan 56:00

Anti-anxiety medication.

Alban 56:02

I don't really mind the I don't mind that part of it. I always check one bag. I'm just a nice thing with Delta is I pretty much fly Delta 95% of the time. And 5% of the time I regret not flying with Delta because Jacksonville, it's it's easy. There's a nice Delta lounge. If you fly Delta enough, then they're gonna let you into their lounge. You can go get a drink, you can get a bite to eat. It's faster than going to a place to get food. Uh, you go to Atlanta, you get some more food, you hang out with the family. It's easy.

Jordan 56:39

You need more food.

Alban 56:40

So I mean, I know maybe maybe you have another drink, whatever you want, Jordan. And uh always one bag, always checked. And so now I have a toiletry bag that I packed that nothing leaves. It's like this is a travel bag, and it stays with my suitcase. So it's just like it's there, and I don't think like, oh, gotta grab my toothbrush, gotta grab my razor, gotta grab this. It's just like that stuff stays in the toiletry bag, and if it runs out, I get a new one for the like travel bag. Right. Makes travel way better. Um, show up a little bit extra early, go just kind of chill in the airport, no one's stressed out. So when something goes wrong, you're totally fine.

Jordan 57:26

It's funny because I actually that was what I was thinking too, is when I got a little bit more uh used to traveling pretty consistently, I did go and purchase a second of everything. And so I've got a whole travel set of chargers and things like that that always stay packed in my bag. I have even like an Apple uh watch band that is specifically for travel. And I keep a um separate like toiletry bag. Everything is just packed in my suitcase at all times. Like if anything happens and I gotta get out of here in like 10 minutes, no problemo.

Kevin 58:04

Like a go bag. I like it. Yeah.

Jordan 58:07

I also always pack a Nintendo Switch with me. And it has come in clutch. I know it's it is come in clutch so often. And actually, like I was talking about how I had this like awful travel experience back from New York. The best thing that happened though was on my flight when I finally got on a flight from Dallas to Boise. Um, next to me was a five-year-old boy, and he was so cute. And I was so excited just to like sit next to him. And so he and I just like bonded, and it was like a three-hour flight of me just talking to this five-year-old kid like the whole time. And turns out that he loves like Mario and like Smash Brothers and like Mario Kart and stuff like that. And I was like, dude, happens that I have a switch. And I pulled out my bag switch, and for like two hours on the flight, I had my switch set up and we were playing Mario Kart together. And it was like the best. It was so fun. And his dad was super happy too.

Alban 59:06

All right, here's another big tip. Everybody needs to have pre-check. You just gotta go.

Jordan 59:13

No way, no, dude, no way 100%.

Alban 59:16

You got it.

Kevin 59:17

Do not do that. Why?

Jordan 59:18

The line's longer than regular.

Kevin 59:20

If everyone has pre-check, then no one has pre-check, Alvin. Oh, oh, you're just everyone at my party needs to have it. I I don't agree with that either. I like that I'm traveling in a large group and I have pre-check and you guys don't.

Jordan 59:35

Your wife and your kids don't, but you do.

Alban 59:39

I said before. But I I got pre-check uh before my wife did because I was needed, I was like, I'm flying a lot. I don't, I hate like doing the whole going through and taking off my food and plastic and bags and whatever. And they always yell at you for something, they're like, get the laptop out.

Speaker 3 59:58

And then the next guy's like, put the laptop in. We never told you to do that.

Alban 1:00:01

And you're like, dude, I'm pretty sure the other guy yelled at me about the opposite way yesterday. But pre-check is way nicer. So I got it. And I'm telling my wife, like, hey, you gotta check get this pre-check. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And like a month before we were flying, I think we're going to Yellowstone. I was just like, Marie, a month from today, we're gonna be going to the airport and we're gonna walk in and then we're gonna get up to where they split people off for pre-check and not pre-check. I really want you to walk with me through pre-check, but I can tell you right now, I am going that direction. And I really want you to be there and not really mad at me for it. And she looks at me and she gets frustrated. She goes, Okay.

Speaker 3 1:00:44

And then went and got it that day. Because she was like, as soon as she played it in her mind, she's like, I will get mad at that. I'm not gonna like watching you walk right through in 20 seconds and me get stuck in some long line. Oh, and I was also, I was like, our daughter, she can go on my pre-check. So I was like, she's going with me. You don't want to be back there in the uh the normal walking through section, taking your shoes up.

Kevin 1:01:07

Oh my gosh, you're a monster. I'm leaving this direction, and I'm taking our child.

Speaker 3 1:01:12

I'm a monster. Kevin's the one leaving his wife outside the lounge. She just said, hey, come with me.

Kevin 1:01:16

Kevin did nothing wrong. He's perfect. There's definitely two sides of that story.

Jordan 1:01:20

So here's the thing, okay? Like, pre-check, I get it. It's it's cool, it's fancy boy material, but like boy material. Fancy boy. It's like, but fancy boys do. Um, in Boise, there have been times I've gotten to the airport and the pre-check has a line that is going like clear out. It's super long. And then the regular TSA line is like nothing because nowadays you don't have to take your toiletries out of your bag. You don't have to take your computer out. You don't have to like separate your devices from like everything else. And you also don't have to take off your shoes. So you literally just like chuck your stuff into a bin and then like go. And then all the people who have held had pre-check are like just still sticking to it, even though there's no line in TSA. Like it's wild to me.

Kevin 1:02:08

I agree. I think that we need to raise the stakes around what it takes to get pre-check. It needs to be harder. Too many people are getting it. Full background check. Now they have touchless, which is somewhat what I'm asking for because there's a pre-check line and then and then they split you off from there to go touchless.

Jordan 1:02:24

What's that?

Alban 1:02:25

That's just you don't even hand them your ID. You just walk up and they take a photo of your face and they run it through their government ID system and they go, Oh, that's Alban. He's good to go. He's on a flight. Which I guess I assume they already were doing. It's funny that the first moment the government was like, Hey, can we like do identity and check where you are at all times? I went, does it get me through TSA slightly faster? Yes. Okay, I mean.

Kevin 1:02:50

We're gonna need access to all of your personal data.

Alban 1:02:52

I'm I'm a huge uh privacy advocate until the minute they're like, you can get into the airport like 45 seconds faster, and I'm like, sign me up.