The trend towards authenticated podcasting can be a healthy one for podcasting, helping listeners engage with and support podcasters beyond ad impressions alone. But the risk is further fragmentation and an archipelago of paywalled apps, fraying the interoperability that has made podcasting a thriving, open ecosystem. PodPass is a generative strategy to expand the range of models through an open standard, creating more value for listeners and creators alike. We’re open to feedback and are sharing this proposal at this stage to start a larger conversation. Read more: https://about.radiopublic.com/20...

Inspired by widely-deployed technologies like OAuth, along with a growing number of attempts to improve the UX for access-controlled podcasts by building a fully-integrated stack, PodPass is an attempt to maintain one of the best things about podcasting—portability of both publication and subscription—while still supporting these increasingly common models. Rather than announce a fully-formed spec and asking folks to implement it or leaving the specifics of implementation completely to the imagination, I wrote up a draft spec. I fully expect to throw it away, but it has already helped spark some ideas during our conversations. You can read it here: https://docs.google.com/document... I’m in the middle of gathering interested parties who want to participate in the writing of our first official version of the spec. You can email me (chris@radiopublic.com) if you want to be added to the list. See the example listener experience: https://www.figma.com/proto/BCoS...