But people also need to remember putting together a show is a large amount of work, and one subject I was excited to hear about at PodCampNYC was that people may start charging for their work (think, the Anything But Monday show). My point here is that I think we’re getting to the point where people’s expectations (an audience) now have to be backed up with more support for content producers. If one thing that’s needed here is money for said content producers, I say, great. People may react negatively to this and say they can listen to thousands of other shows for free, and they can and should. Great. But if we (the collective audience) want quality pod/videocasts to survive, we have to start thinking about their content as worth paying for, period. You pay your mechanic, right? You buy food with money? Well now let’s shift out of the “I get every bit of learning for free any time I want no matter what” mindset to “if I want this great learning I may have to pony up and help these people pay some bills” mentality.

I don’t mean to sound flippant, by the by-just reminding folks that folks like Jason Van Orden are a precious commodity and the fact that he shares SO MUCH for free is great and we should listen/read/watch as much as possible. But if you haven’t bought his book or hired him as a podcast consultant, consider recommending him to others. Podcasting Godfather that he is, he does have to pay bills.