Say it ain’t so, Joe!

I guess by the end of the year I won’t be listening to The Joe Rogan Experience. As John Gruber reports, Joe Rogan has announced his decision to remove his podcast from the open web and baracade it behind a walled garden through an exclusive license with Spotify.

Of course we do not know the specifics of the deal, however I would assume that Spotify remain the exclusive licensee of any episode of The Joe Rogan Experience recorded under the deal in perpetuity, meaning it will now be impossible to share any content generated under this deal with people outside of Spotify’s distribution.

And for those of us who don’t want to install Spotify? Too bad. Even though Spotify will force targeted ads at me? Too bad. Even though, according to their privacy policy, they can hold my data indefinitely? Look, someone’s gotta fund the move to Texas.

It’s a strange decision because of the discrepency between Joe’s concerns about contact tracing (00:29:40) when you consider Spotify’s privacy practices. As Joe might put it:

Give up a little bit of your privacy, give up a little bit of your freedom, and I’ll give you a show.

I’ve been a fan of The Joe Rogan Experience for several years and I have learned a lot. I don’t agree with everything said on the show, but if I only listened to things I completely agreed with, my podcast feed would be empty. However, his unfiltered conversations with scientists, anthropologists, historians, astro physicists, athletes, coaches, entertainers, entrepreneurs, and even politicians have expanded the worldview of myself and countless others. Listening to the show has been educational, inspirational, and more often than not, fuckin’ hilarious.

And soon, it will be missed.

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