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Comment by Traster | Hacker News Reader

I think that one thing this analysis is missing is why F1 drivers go to Ferrari. F1 drivers don't drive for Ferrari because they pay the best. They drive for Ferrari because of the dream. On Youtube Joe Rogan is just some guy. Spotify is offering Joe Rogan more than that.

Personally, I think the real point in this analysis is that 90% of people just aren't going to sollow him to spotify. Which is fine for spotify, they're buying users, but for Joe Rogan it'll be the end of his place in popular culture.

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My guess Howard Stern is a good example from last decade. He is still around, but mostly irrelevant.

Still has a massive audience, recently had a best selling booking, and generates headlines -- but I guess you have a unique definition of relevance. I'd encourage you to listen to his guest interviews -- they are amazing.

I was previously a Stern fan and I distinctly recall listening to him on my way to school on 9/11 as he was covering the planes hitting the twin towers. I haven't heard or seen a single thing from Stern since he switched to satellite. I have no idea how to even listen to his guest interviews if I wanted. I could search for it, but that's kind of the point, I would have to search. It's never popped up in my YT/Twitter/FB feed. Friction is powerful, especially at scale.

I used to listen to Stern every once and a while when he was on the radio. I haven't listened to Stern since his move to Sirius radio. I'm not saying it was a bad move for Stern, but he certainly lost some amount of relevance, just didn't become irrelevant.

Ferrari definitely pays the best.

The other advantage of Ferrari for race drivers was that their testing, they had the Maranelo testing track right next to the lab.

But this now forbidden, it was an "unfair" advantage. So I see no other reason why anyone wants to work for the crazy Italians with their unusual language. If they would not pay more. I don't see the Ferrari dream being much better than the Mercedes or McLaren dream. Lots of marketing money, but as race driver above 18 you mostly go for the engineering culture.

And exactly this engineering culture got lost with Google and Apple lately. That's why people want to leave.

Spotify already has a spot in popular culture, so I'm not sure he loses that much.

Rogan loses a portion of his existing audience to be sure, but he gains a more committed audience this way, and those hundreds of millions of people that are already listening to Spotify may have a new favorite show.

I’d bet there is already substantial crossover between Spotify subs and JRE listeners. In hierarchy of importance Spotify is higher for me than many paid video streaming services.

not only that but I kind of feel like "selling" lets down the new-media movement he's been leading

his success is basically a middle finger to traditional media and corporations - having a very small team, organic growth, and being more authentic and making millions without NEEDING to sell out.

of course I've never had a 9 figure deal so I'm soapboxing here.

but I'd be lying if I didn't say this damages what i really admired about the podcast. idk.

In podcasting, Joe Rogan is is Joe Rogan.

On Spotify, Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan with a smaller audience.

I don't see how this is "the dream".

I may be going out on a limb here, but maybe a 9-figure deal is the dream part

They drive for ferrari because its a great way to win championships. Ferrari and mercedes put 10x the budget into sport the closest rival, red bull does.

The analogy doesnt work. Rogan built a ferrari brand and now he's letting it be bought out by a midtier team with deep pockets like Stroll's dad.

This raises a good point unless both Joe and Spotify see the rising market adoption of podcast content blowing in their direction. That being, Spotify is mainstream enough for Joe to compound his growth still. And Joe agrees, as I doubt he would compromise prestige for dollars.

F1 drivers drive for Ferrari because they want to win.

This ain't rocket surgery. Ferrari invests a ton more in their brand and their program than other teams do. The money you make outside of F1 from endorsements more than makes up the slightly lesser pay.

Bold statement (and I admire the act for its own sake). Let’s see how it ages, but it would be helpful to define how you measure his place in popular culture. Listeners per month?

Interestingly, Reed Hastings agrees that (viewers * time watched) is the metric that will really matter in the end: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/06/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-su...

I'm a soon to be Google Play Music refugee (after they close up shop) and enjoy Rogan... I guess it was good timing

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