Keen On America

Gutted and Glutted: The Dire Economics of Podcasting in the AI Age

Sep 20, 2025
Marshall Poe, founder of The New Books Network and a historian, dives into the crisis facing independent podcasters in the age of AI. He highlights how AI scraping threatens creators' livelihoods, likening it to the piracy of the Napster era. Poe argues that this mass appropriation of intellectual property is destroying the podcast economy, loaded with low-quality AI-generated content. He discusses the challenges of discovery and funding, emphasizing the need for transparency and fair compensation for true creators in an increasingly difficult landscape.
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INSIGHT

AI Amplifies An Old Theft Model

  • Marshall Poe argues AI accelerates a long-standing business model of taking creators' work and repackaging it without paying them.
  • He sees AI as making mass intellectual-property theft vastly cheaper and easier than before.
ANECDOTE

Napster Echoes In AI Era

  • Poe recalls Napster and LimeWire as historical precedents for today's AI content copying.
  • He admits he illegally downloaded music in 2001 and recognizes the harm done then.
INSIGHT

Cost Of Content Theft Has Collapsed

  • Poe reframes "information wants to be free" as "the cost of stealing it is dropping to zero."
  • Machines now automate large-scale content appropriation, making theft cheap.
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