Haze

Bingo, lack of implied meaning can be a killer.

In all seriousness all of these teething problems will work themselves out. I have little doubt the app will be a success. I just really hope its the only podcasting app I'll ever have to pay for!

Like Ubuntu used to do?

I brought it up in jest! Lets all calm down, here is a picture of Daniel o'Donnell

Not a direct correlation just struggling for a metaphor. Seemed better than bringing up Steam Mods. Honestly I know calling it morally wrong is dicky.

Yeah we did get kind of off topic there...

Interesting you should say that. Irish is one of the few Western nations that has accepted water is a human right, so they can't punish non-payers by cutting them off. Last I heard the worst they can do is lower water pressure.

We did not do well during the global recession. Its a bit too much to go into here but basically things went Greek bad, we accepted the EU bale-out terms, suffered years of crippling austerity, paid back the EU and just as we where finally in the recovery when taxes where meant to go down and austerity finally ended the government said "Yay! Here is a new bill!" Basically it was the final straw. Though If I am being honest we seem to just have some deep-seeded moral objection to paying for water (it rains all the time!). They tried to introduce water charges back in the 90s but so few people actually paid it the government folded on the issue.

Water was free in Ireland for the entire history of the Irish Republic. Then the government says "yeah we are going to start charging for that. Because reasons. Also we are setting up a corporation called Irish Water to handle it." People where not happy. Its actually one of the biggest political issues in the country right now and might play a deciding factor in the next election. Irish Water haven't released info on how many people have actually paid bill but it is almost certainly less than those who haven't.

In Ireland thats what we call the Irish Water argument

Also there needs to be a howl app from windows and OSX as well as iOS and Android. It kind of needs to be on everything.

Can I say if feels morally wrong to me without sounding like a holier than thou jackass? Thats an honest question I understand you need to make money. For me I think the free service should have stayed as it was with the paid content built on top of it. I think that would have been more fair.

Depending on what school of thought you subscript too mortality has no place in business, never liked that idea personally. Hope about just wrong? Putting the old episodes behind the paywall was the wrong thing to do. Adding value to the paid service by subtracting value from the existing free service is from a listener point of view wrong.

I'm just going to ask, why was it decided to gate the old episodes Scott?

And I will reiterate the archives with add should remain free and add that if they where going to do this they should have waited until apps for other platforms where available.

I have voiced my concerns on the CBB episode forum but I will say this here. Putting everything older than six months behind the paywall is wrong. It is an openly hostile move against people on the free tier. If you watch the CBB TV show and want to hear Fourvels podcast appearances? That will be $4.99. Lauren Lapkus points you to the origin of one of her characters on twitter? $4.99. Want to listen to a best of so you can see if this podcast is something you are even interested in? $4.99 thank you very much. It is exclusionary and wrong and never should have been implemented. Also Netflix, Amazon Prime, music streaming service of you choice, any twitch channel your are subscribed to, the list of online entertainment services that want your low monthly payment keeps growing and growing. I have seen this called the death by 1000 cuts and I frankly agree. This is getting harder and harder to swallow. If (as I suspect, might not actually be true) E.W. Scripps only bought Earwolfs parent company so it could implement this paid podcasting service I frankly resent it. We are not all made of money, iphones are expensive and as my grandmother said "a fiver is a lot of money if you haven't got it."

Had a read, that was fortunately far more polite and adult than I feared.

Who did the what now?

That another thing, there is no way to download DRM free copies of these podcasts. DRM'd podcasts, not something I am happy to see.

Piracy is not a concern for subscription service though. You could torrent the (free) app but you couldn't use androids freedom powers to knock down the paywall.

I disagree. E.W. Scripps wanted to take a stab at monetising the podcast market, bought a large podcast producer and went ahead with it. That just how business is. Now many people will say €4.99 a month (because according the American business the Euro and the dollar are worth the same) isn't that much. Well as my grandmother would have said a fiver is a lot when you haven't got it. Also a fiver is a lot when ever other entertainment source on the internet is also charge a fiver. Also say this, I have seen website after website after website (and one radiostation) get bought out by a larger company and completely ruined. Putting up paywalls that alienate the community, altering the websites style to appeal to a larger audience or bring it in line with a corporate vision. In fact the only website I can think of where a buyout didn't ruin everything was Giantbomb.com and I'm not sure Earwolf has a Jeff Gerstmann. Edit: And to eco what everyone else has been saying putting old episodes the behind the paywall was a very bad idea. It made an already bitter pill even harder to swallow.

Jerk no. Not great for the listener? Maybe.

Also the app and the website don't seem to sync and there seems to be no way of searching the website.

Premium RSS feeds still need to be a thing. Either that or the howl app needs to be on everything, phones, desktop apps, Chromecast, Roku. Even with the website listening options are painfully limited right now. iTunes on desktop is still the best podcatcher option. Big old hard drive so you aren't constantly having to delete things, auto downloads so you never have to worry about missing anything. I'll also say this, I will pay for this but I am doing it begrudgingly. You can't start charging for something you have been doing free for many many years and expect people not to be annoyed. This also opens the door for multiple premium podcast services. If that happens podcast listening could become as or more expensive than movie or music streaming. This move could prove disruptive in the worst kind of way. I'm sure E.W. Scripps had this in mind from the begging, purchasing the company was just their was of ensuring they had content. Either way I love and support Earwolf but I do not consider this a good thing. As a listener and a person with limited funds this really isn't a good thing.

Ahh the endless internet dance of a small independent company being bought by a large company, introducing a pay wall and then trying to convince existing users its a good thing. It will never be taken as a good thing. Never has never will. Getting past the premium thing confining the paid stuff to an ios exclusive app is incredibly dumb. Thats the vast majority of smart phone users excluded right there. If fact confining to an app at all isn't great. What about those of use who like to listen from our desktops? Why not lets us sign up on the website and give us access to premium RSS feeds we can subscribe to in itunes? I really can't stress this enough. I want to give you my money but YOU NEED TO MAKE THE PAID CONTENT ACCESSIBLE OUTSIDE THE APP