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Top-level
 @jaredwhite You don’t get to decide what a word does or doesn’t mean, nor do I. Culturally, a podcast is an audio program that is made available as a download to your chosen device, as opposed to a program broadcast live and requiring a receiver. No one cares how it works. Frankly, I don’t care, but I find language police annoying. On the other hand, the democratic beauty of the RSS feed is a worthy ideal. 52 comments
@jaredwhite Touché. Didn’t explain myself well with my thumbs. My point is that society decides, not you, not me.  @davidtoddmccarty And who is "society" in this case? I refuse accept Apple, Spotify, and a tiny handful of other large corporations get to redefine what a podcast is and how podcasting works, then hide behind "well that’s just what society thinks” Podcasting was a *well-established medium* and one of the greatest success stories of the open web. Still is. @jaredwhite They don’t get to own it. But who cares what it’s called? I was enjoying podcasts long before iTunes came out. But it was iTunes that made it a viable thing outside of a handful of nerds in basements. @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite While I much prefer open RSS podcasts, and appreciate the sentiment against walled gardens, I have to note that “podcast” is a word derived from a defunct Apple product that greatly popularized the medium itself. I personally hope podcasts mostly remain indie and open to all via RSS but language policing feels like an indirect way to lobby for that  @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite  @jeffjarvis @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew IMHO: history of #RSS is a story of Valley founders/VCs/Titan's penchant for embracing & absconding with ideas of others (Twitter fits model: Jack suggesting a public trust is laughable: it was derived from open standard) Commercial podcasting now just a closed #surveillance enabler for harvesting & monetizing human behaviours. Dave: your work was & remains disruptive. 'RSS as OS' seems like threads worth pulling. 🙏's for all you do  @TryshHQ @jeffjarvis @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite Working on it. We could use that kind of enthusiasm in the FeedLand community. @jeffjarvis @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew Yes. But this thread is about the word. A very limited question. I suspect everyone here actually agrees about the issue of open podcasting vs. attempts to wall it in. But who cares what Spotify calls its internet radio shows? Not the heart of the matter. @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite You’re a journalist, right? So facts matter. You call it policing and that’s spin, and gaslighting, very unjournalism imho.  @davew @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I like authoritative sources: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/podcast : a program (as of music or talk) made available in digital format for automatic download over the Internet @davew @jeff @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite The MW definition is good. In theory. The problem is that in practice, it may not be that seamless. People do not want to jump thru hoops, and have to install some package to listen. It is KISS. If the podcaster creates hoops, people will just ignore. @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite Mr. LaForge: An editor for the New York Times that calls it “language policing” when two commercial companies attempt to co-opt a label that has meant one thing since 2005, and use it for something different, deliberating blurring the line between them. It’s not language policing, it’s you failing to recognize your own lack of resistance to nefarious corporate marketing, and perpetuating that misinformation as a result. @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite now we’re talking about prescriptive linguistics vs descriptive linguistics. The truth is that most people don’t understand the underlying tech, and think of “podcasts” as “audio programs I can download to my device”. (N.b. the lack of success of video “podcasts” even though there’s no technical difference between audio and video!) I’m a fan of open RSS-based podcasts, but arguing the language is pointless. @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite disagree? Go ask ten non-tech-savvy friends. (If you get different results I’ll be shocked.) @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I’m sorry, are you arguing that the New York Times should base it’s editorial choices about technical products on the words non-technical average people use? The companies that market things using bad labels win if they convince enough non-savvy people? Amazing and sad. @pwinn @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty Seriously! This conversation is beginning to border on the ludicrous. In what other industry do industry terms get to be redefined by…like, whoever? Do average non-medical people get to define medical terms? Do average non-civil engineering people get to define civil engineering terms? Do the manufacturers of aerospace infrastructure get to have their terminology redefined by some (waves hands) mass group of people? It's absurd. @jaredwhite @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty Um, yes, people redefine “medical” or “engineering” terms all the time, and popular definitions often vary from the true “technical” definition. Language evolves through usage. @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty Not only do I disagree with this, it scares me. This is how we end up with "alt-facts" and conspiracy theories. Without some semblance of a shared reality where well-established terms actually mean something and they're hard to hijack by disingenuous parties, culture collapses. @jaredwhite @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty I’m not saying this is necessarily a *good* thing in all cases. I’m just noting how language actually evolves in reality. And yes, this *is* one of the vectors that leads us to "alt-facts” and conspiracy theories. That said, I think the ship has sailed on the definition of “podcast”. The ship has definitely *not* sailed on advocating against making podcasts exclusive. @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I’m arguing that it’s unreasonable to expect non-tech-savvy people, *or the people who write for them*, to split hairs about terms that have clearly accepted meanings among the masses. It comes off sounding like Kimberly-Clark calling people out for referring to generic tissue as “Kleenex” - it’s fine, and even legally sound, but it’s not going to change anything. @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew is in this thread and co-invented podcasting. I wonder if he thinks the word should be used to describe DRMed data locked into a single proprietary client. Does his word matter more or less than the two companies attempting to profit from redefining it? @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew Please also note that I am not attempting to accost random non-savvy friends who don’t know better, but am instead responding to someone whose bio describes him as an editor for the New York Times. If a person I don’t know walks down the street talking about the “Joe Rogan podcast,” I feel no need or desire to correct them. If I see that phrase in America’s paper of record, I wonder if everything else in the paper is as poorly informed. @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew Having read many things in the NYT and other sources of generally-great journalism about things I know more about, I can say with confidence that you should never assume that any journalist is particularly well-informed about anything. 🤣 The good ones are trying hard, but they don’t know. @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew right, they don’t know, which is why it’s important to tell them. This thread is ludicrous. Dave is right. @pwinn @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite ignore the cynics. they never did anything useful but they sure do try to get in the way. @davew @pwinn @aelman @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite FWIW, I’m not trying to get in the way, I just think that framing this as "you're using the word wrong” when most everyone else (and most dictionaries) use the word that way is a losing battle and is counter-productive. I *do* think it’s worth fighting the real fight, which is (as Dave said in another post): the web should belong to no-one. @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite we have work to do here. you are definitely getting in the way. podcasting is the same as the web. what you all are saying is that just by grabbing it spotify now owns it. 1. you're wrong 2. and who cares we have work to do. this is a pointless worthless time-wasting discussion. @davew @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I will shut up then. @aelman @davew @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty I mean, I'm happy to agree with you that > framing this as "you're using the word wrong” is a good point. However, my contention would be that that's not my original framing. My original framing was to call out **journalists in the news** for refraining from calling out corporations who are abusing the term for their own gain. Big difference there. @jaredwhite @davew my argument (and I swear this is my last comment on this, because I said I’d shut up) is that those corporations are not “abusing the term for their own gain” - they're using the term CORRECTLY as it is popularly understood, but they’re engaging in a business practice that we think violates the spirit of the web. Arguing the semantics feels like a losing strategy to win a critical battle here. But TBH I don’t have a better one, so I’ll shut up. @jaredwhite @aelman @davew @pwinn @davidtoddmccarty I think a podcast with a paywall is still a podcast, in English. Would I pay for a podcast service? I give money to MaxFun, Relay and others. I am glad they don’t twist my arm. But there are many ways to raise revenue to support content. They can all coexist. It is up to the users @palafo @aelman @davew @pwinn @davidtoddmccarty Again, not the issue. I 100% agree with you that a podcast with a paywall is still a podcast… …as long as that podcast is provided via a unique URL which serves an RSS feed which can be loaded into my player (Pocket Casts). I actually subscribe to several membership podcasts behind a paywall, and this is exactly how it works! If exclusive shows from Apple, Spotify, and any others worked in this manner, there'd be no further debate necessary. @jaredwhite @aelman @davew @pwinn @davidtoddmccarty I prefer that as well and hope there is enough user pressure so that remains the standard. I do worry about fragmentation or companies breaking the open network. The ecosystem also seems overly reliant on the “free” Apple directory. @davew @aelman @pwinn @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I agree with Dave. I think the web can flourish regardless of what various corporations do. They can’t buy the whole market. @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite Why it's so important to get clear on what podcasting is. Because podcasting is like the web. And we're fighting for something much bigger than podcasting, something which *includes* podcasting, the ownership of the web itself. Google has been acting like the owner of the web for a few years. This is being covered up by the tech industry, but it is a fact and a public issue of the most importance. The web belongs to no one. Period. @davew @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite I thought they were netcasts we loved, from people we trust.  @davew @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite No-one except me. @davew @aelman @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite Yep! The #Web is for everyone. @aelman @pwinn@qoto.org @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite @davew the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect? https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/231746/after-seeing-how-misinformed-an-article-is-in-a-newspaper-you-flip-the-page-and @pwinn @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite when he calls it "policing" he's gaslighting. he's telling you he has no respect for you and he stopped listening. i would block him. @palafo @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite also btw I can't imagine you tolerating me telling you what the name of the NY Times means. really appalling how arrogant you all are.  @jaredwhite @davidtoddmccarty What some deride as language policing is, in essence, just another way of saying commitment to accuracy. In a world where people increasingly find ways to distort truth for various reasons, often “cultural” in nature, I think there’s something to be said for refusing to go along with calling an X a Y when it’s an X. Maybe it’s a lot to ask laypeople to get this right, but surely the standard can and should be a bit higher for journalists.  @davidtoddmccarty @jaredwhite You're in a strange medium and a strange thread in particular to be making the claim that "nobody" cares about definitions and technicalities. 🤣
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Gregory's Server
@davidtoddmccarty “You don’t get to decide what a word does or doesn’t mean, nor do I"
*immediately proceeds to describe what a word means*
You don’t see the irony in that? 😂