Thoughts on “Preserve This Podcast”

I recently finished listening to the “Preserve This Podcast” podcast series, a five episode podcast on best practices for preserving the files associated with podcasts as well as the final podcast files themselves. I thought the series was excellent, which includes a zine/document supplementing the podcast and good advice on how to put the principles into practice. I also liked how they had some audio clips from conversations with Dave Winer, who created the technology base for podcasting through RSS.

I didn’t have any philosophical disagreements with the podcast until the last episode, when the subject of web hosting was discussed. The host, Molly Schwartz, talked about how many people have the expectation that their podcast show should live forever, and didn’t realize that if they don’t pay for a hosting service (like Libsyn, etc.), or host it themselves on a website, that their files would disappear. How can people in 2019 still have this expectation? (see Site deaths) The idea that someone can create a web asset (podcast, website, video, whatever) for zero cost and still have complete control is ridiculous! I also think that the image of a person producing a podcast as someone who does not have much technical ability is misleading. If you are not just using your phone as a voice recorder, and are recording and editing audio and handling sound equipment, you have to have some technical ability. To emphasize the need to spend effort to make sure that data is not lost, but then put the idea out there that it is too much work to do self-hosting or create a RSS feed is inconsistent at best, trending to stupid at worst. You can only get something for nothing for so long, and you can’t expect to have the functionality of paid services on a free basis.

I also thought that the idea in episode 5 of “having to figure out what to do about PreserveThisPodcast.org” was ludicrous! With all the planning of this series and archiving experts working on the project, how could they have not planned to keep this information beyond the end of the grant funding? Why didn’t the organization who got the grant (Metro New York Library Council) take responsibility for keeping this available? At a minimum, it seems like a terrible plot device to motivate/manipulate podcasters into preserving their work.

Don’t get me wrong on my intent – I love that this podcast was created. As a result, I am starting to think about how to preserve my own web content. The thing that sticks out as inconsistent is perpetuating the idea of expecting something for nothing (free hosting, etc). If that is a person’s expectation when they create something on the web, that person should not shed any tears if it disappears.