0041 Sir Gene Speaks Special - Interview Guilherme Dellagustin

Gene: 0:14

now we have uh, he's going to be joining us and talking about his podcasting 2.0 product which is pod station. How are you going, Guilherme

Guilherme: 0:26

Hey, thanks for inviting me. I'm fine. And you.

Gene: 0:28

I'm good. I'm good. you created path station, but before we get into that, I want to jump into a little bit of a history with you and tell us what you've done and what led you up to creating this.

Guilherme: 0:40

All right. So I have been S working with software development for a long time. I think it's already 20 years. I started around 2001, 2002, and back then I was doing C plus plus development and working with a design software, creating some extensions for adding it's pronounced it outlook. Cod or AutoCAD and I switch it around 2010 to an ERP software in a big company, still working with development. And yeah, it's I didn't do web development professionally but I learned a bit in a side project in my latest company where I am working it was a very interesting topic because there was like an internal dashboard where people could contribute with code and stuff like that. They were using this inner source. Contribution model, which is basically like open source, but inside the company for proprietary software. And that's where I learned a bit of angular JS and also web development. And also on another side project, I. Started because I started learning like web development. I also started fiddling around with browser extensions and how to develop them. And then all of these together I think around 2015, I wanted to build something. I was looking for a good player podcast player for the desktop. And I was, I think, still using wine. M it's

Gene: 2:08

Oh, Winamp.

Guilherme: 2:09

amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. It's still

Gene: 2:12

Yeah, I just re-installed the about a month ago.

Guilherme: 2:15

Yeah. It had a feature where you could import RSS feeds and then you could download the things and it was working nicely, but I wanted something that would synchronize the podcasts. I subscribe it to between my home computer and my work. Computer. And I was thinking how to do that. Then I learned that in Chrome extensions, you had a tiny amount of space that you could use to synchronize stuff. I think it was mainly for the options of the player sorry of the extension, but I ended up kind of miss using it for application data and, but the list of subscription there and then start to improve it like, but a player, but at least of stuff that you have Listen to what not finished so that you can continue a playlist. And I put the most important stuff into this sink storage so they can start listening on my home computer and then continue listening there in between other solutions appear like now these days there are other ways you can do that. But by then I had already built the software and I have been maintaining it since then. It's an open source project so people can contribute

Gene: 3:23

so how long ago did you start it?

Guilherme: 3:25

It was 2015.

Gene: 3:27

Oh, okay. So six years ago. Okay.

Guilherme: 3:29

Yeah. It's six years. So it has been something like, in the beginning it was like a lot of development. Then I stopped for a little bit. Then sometimes I think of something cool. We come back. Then I spent some time and then I spent months without touching it. Then I come back and then the last thing that happened, I think it was this podcasting 2.0 that got me interested back into touching it. And that's where I came back basically. And now it's I am doing still some development. It's a hobby project. So it's very generous from you to call it a product. I wouldn't say it's a product. It's more like a pet project that accepts donations and try to stay more or less. Up-to-date.

Gene: 4:09

donations should be going up because with podcasting 2.0, it's not just the podcast creators that are benefiting from people. Streaming, SATs. But also the player developers as well. Rather than just getting, one-time donations it allows people to just turn on the spigot essentially, and then make micro donations, but make him continuously.

Guilherme: 4:34

Yeah, that's true. It's so the kind of consensus is that players should take around 1%. That's what I am doing. I see some sets in coming from time to time, but it's still, I think. Pod station is a bit of a niche. Like it's on the, only on the desktop and it's a browser extension, so it's a Not so

Gene: 4:55

will say it is harder to set up right now, so

Guilherme: 4:58

For, yeah, for the for the value for value thing, it's a bit, it's very, I call it. It's still experimental. It's a bit rough. I did it based on L and D. So I, I set up locally and L and D node. That is one of the lightning nodes that you can install. And then I did some tests. It was not even in the main net for Bitcoin enlightening. It was like a local rag test net. What they call it like for testing. And it worked it and stuff like that. Then I did productively with Ellen Bay, but it's still a little bit rough around the edges. I am trying to be careful with this one, especially when I start persisting stuff like saving the stuff that you wear. Then I have to think about migrating this data if I change it. So all this kind of stuff. So taking it a bit slow.

Gene: 5:45

Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things, and I, I don't want to. Have the sound like I'm complaining about your product? I think it's very much in progress and I think it is neat. It's I think it's, there's only one other extension podcast player that I've seen out there and it is a much less feature. Rich than yours is. But as far as the donation stuff, I know for me I literally struggled for about two days trying to figure out why is what I'm putting in there. Not working, even though I thought I was putting in the information that I needed to connect my wallet. Or really connect my node and that's not just a wallet and it turned out to be something fairly minor, like putting in the HTTPS. But it's little things too, where if you hit copy from your wallet and you hit paste into this, it just wasn't working. And I needed to actually. Change that. And also couldn't find anywhere where it said to do that. So luckily when Adam posted something I realized, Oh, okay, let me try something else. The other thing about this is since it is connecting to a to a node. And not just a wallet it's a little bit more dangerous. I would say I've got a lot more money sitting in that note than I do in a small podcast wallet, which is what most of the other products use is they just create a small, separate wallet. You send some money to that wallet. And then, I maybe have$5 value worth of a Bitcoin sitting in there for making donations. You can just refill that as needed, whereas yours actually connects to the big guy.

Guilherme: 7:24

I don't know yet how this is going to be solved, but I have been listening to to the latest developments, like even in the podcasting 2.0 podcast that was, we fading the guys from Sphinx. Paul and sorry, I don't remember the name of the other guy. They were talking about this multi-tenant thing in a single node where you can create like veer toll nodes on top of it. I think that this may be a solution for this, even if it's only your node, maybe you can split into virtual nodes. So you'll say, okay, this node or this virtual, no that you use for this purpose. And then it's only for. Podcasting. And then I keep a small balance there or something like that. But I guess that's it's like building something like a house where the foundation is still being developed and I am learning in the process. So I guess there's a lot

Gene: 8:13

And I think anybody that's using that right now knows enough that everything is still testing. You could lose, anything you put in those wallets at any time. It's just, that's why you don't want to keep a whole lot in there. And I would definitely say if you haven't already reached out to the developer of pod friend, because what he's doing is purely in the browser. Or at least he's has a version that is just the browser. It doesn't require an application and he's figured out

Guilherme: 8:41

I think he's also using Ellen pay as a, I don't think he's connecting to any other node. So you can also use Alan pay in pod station. So you could create a wallet there and then transfer only a small amount of funds to that wallet and then use it. It's still. And is a very interesting solution. The way you have to use with board station is a bit less friendly than we've bought friends. So I think in pod France, if you create a wallet, it will be created in a Martin's account. I think it's smart in his name,

Gene: 9:13

Yeah. Yeah. Martin. Yeah.

Guilherme: 9:14

and. The way I did it because I have no backend. They have no way to store data from the users and then match wallets with a certain user. You have to go there, you have to create your account, create your wallet, and then configure it in pod station. So did this advantage is it's more work. The advantage is you like, you need to trust less people let's say. And I think this is a, this was something from the beginning I wanted to. Give this range of options. Like you can go totally autonomous and then have your node and connect to your node. Or you can have a wallet in Allan Bay, but I did, I decided not to create wallets for the users in my account, in a hosted wallets on my account in LNP, because I had no technical ways to ensure that would work. Like we fault having a backend that would be. Very dangerous.

Gene: 10:12

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true. And I think I'm not sure technically how they do it. So maybe what I'm saying is completely full of shit, but. I think the way that breeze works is it's a iOS or Android app, but the wallet only works when the app is running. So I think they're actually using processing on the phone to run the wallets, rather than having a wallet on the backend server of their system.

Guilherme: 10:39

Yeah I have the impression that breeze, so I installed their app and now I subscribed to have like the latest version. I think that's doing kind of a better

Gene: 10:49

Yeah, everybody's in beta, everybody right now is

Guilherme: 10:52

Exactly. But I think they're ha they have something that is less bit beta and then the one that is more better, and this one is the one with the podcasting support, I think. Yeah. As far as I know, they already had a wallet and then they brought it's the broadcasting functionality into the wallet. So they, they were already primarily working with a

Gene: 11:11

true. That is true. Yeah. They had the wallet first. Yep.

Guilherme: 11:14

Yeah. And that's something that for me, it's, I think. I wouldn't say it's I think right now it's impossible. I have seen some demos and research about how you could run a wallet in the browser. Like the full thing. That's very technically advanced because they, they take the code, they compile into this web assembly and they have to do a lot of dangerous things. And I was like, okay, I don't think going in that route yet. And also I thought that reusing an existing wallet. Was better because at least the way I see setting up the wallet, opening the channels, all this kind of stuff. It's time-consuming, and it's also expensive because you have to create any wallet, you have to fund it, you have to open channels. And for everything there is a cost there, and it's not a small one. So if you already had your thing running, you could connect with, but as you mentioned, it's it's dangerous because you are exposing your whole

Gene: 12:12

Yeah. And because the cost of setting up a node and I'm going to have I think I do a whole episode about the costs of Bitcoin infrastructure, because so many podcasts are talking about. Bitcoin price going up and that's great. And if you're just buying it from the exchange and you're using your exchange wallet, or like a USB key wallet to store it, that's a very different conversation than if you're doing development around Bitcoin and lightning network. And so I want to make sure that people have an understanding of the costs associated with it because a lot of them are. Are they're not obvious there they happen at every stage of the process. And I've alluded to this before that, even though one of the benefits that's always been talked about lightning is it's fast and it's super for cheap. Yes. But you get

Guilherme: 13:03

is a big, but

Gene: 13:04

Yeah. There's a big, but so my the really short answer to that is. I've spent the$100 us and I have$46 in my node. And the rest of that money has gone to set up and setting things up trans sending costs using the actual chain. From the blockchain to transfer to the wallet, like all these and opening up channels that has a fairly substantial cost as well. And all of these things are things that you need to do to have a functional node. Now, once it's up and running, of course my costs should be fairly steady at this point. Is it just a per transaction cost, but it's it's not a it's not quite as easy as just, downloading and breeze app. And then hitting a fund button, buying$50 worth of Bitcoin, and you're done, setting up your own node is a substantially more work. And really, I think the only people that need to do that are people that are going to either be doing some development or they're going to be doing a lot of. Transactional investing, let's say, and they wanted to own their own notes for all this stuff. Cause they have a lot of transactions going back and forth, but for most people they will never want to node. That's just a lot more technical things and technical things that cost money than most people will ever need. But I think certainly. Now that I understand what I need to put into your app to be able to use it. It's not like it's a lot of data. It's really just two lines of data, but those two lines of data are they are coming from somebody who has a node. So that's the other thing that's limiting the audience of the people that can use bought station is the fact that you can't be just somebody that has a a wallet out there that you're keeping Bitcoin and you actually have to have your own node.

Guilherme: 15:00

Yeah, your option would be to use Ellen pay is currently the only service that I support, but if others appeared, then I would gladly support it too. Actually, I would be very happy if a standard came around. For this kind of services, because then I would only have to implement once and do some tweaking for one or another, but currently like it's everybody has, is doing its own API and things like that. So I think it's going to be like that for some time, but I guess at some point, some standard for these multi-tenant nodes is going to arise. And with some API on top, that's going to make it easier.

Gene: 15:39

I would imagine. So I think that there's a lot of. A lot of new companies that are going to be starting up or maybe already have started, but just haven't created the products yet. Because this is a very fast growing field. And just looking at the four apps that as of today, there's only four, maybe tomorrow there'll be five, but the four apps that support Bitcoin transactions that are podcasting apps like you mentioned to have them breeze and thinks really were apps for trading and sending Bitcoin to begin with that added podcasting as a feature. So it's really pod station and pod friend are the only two podcasting apps that added Bitcoin functionality. And I'm sure there'll be more and more coming down the line then. The more developers have to solve this problem. The more opportunity it creates for niche services, to be able to say, Hey, we offer a really super fast and easy Watts for people. Here's the downside is you can't, maybe do some things that you can with a full wallet, but it'd be perfect for use for something like this, where you, all you need is to put in$5. So you can start donating and then just refill it as necessary rather than having. A large wallet or large note connected directly.

Guilherme: 16:57

Yeah, that's true. I think for the majority of podcasters and also for listeners, this share it nodes with your tour, wallets on top is going to be the best option because like people. He doesn't want to set up an hour. No. Then stuff like that for the podcasters, it's a little bit more of an advantage because they expect to receive a lot of stuff. But then the result is management and this costs for the listeners. It has to be very easy if they are not on crypto yet, like expecting them to set this up is too much. So having these very easy virtual wallets things it's a good starting point. And especially if you can. Have something that is Hey, automatically grab$5 or$10 a month. And, but there, and make this work, then this will be pretty good.

Gene: 17:43

I almost hate to say it, but if PayPal did this, everybody would use it.

Guilherme: 17:48

That's true. Yeah.

Gene: 17:49

Just create an API that lets you pull out Bitcoin, like PayPal would own that market overnight.

Guilherme: 17:56

That's true. Yeah, I think I don't know if maybe they don't believe so much yet in lightning. It's a very, they are just going into the Bitcoin thing now

Gene: 18:05

They're going the opposite direction, right? So right now the way Bitcoin is doing it is if you have Bitcoin. You can buy things in your local currency and like us dollars you can buy. So you put in Bitcoin or it's, in your Bitcoin PayPal wallet. And it'll go out of there at the current rates at the current exchange rate. And then pay for normal items, but they seem to think that's all people want is just to spend their Bitcoin, which is ridiculous. I think people want to just keep their Bitcoin and if anything, pay for things Bitcoin to Bitcoin, not Bitcoin to Amazon.

Guilherme: 18:41

Yeah, that's true.

Gene: 18:42

So let's talk about your app a little bit. W however you want to describe it. I know it's an extension. I've got it installed. And in fact somebody told me it was a Chrome extension, but I guess Chrome extensions are compatible with other browsers because I use it in the brave browser and it works fine.

Guilherme: 18:56

Yeah. I think every browser that is based on chromium. So there's the base that's used for Chrome, like now, even age. I think Brave. And maybe I think I, there was another one. I think even an opera is is compatible, but you'll have to enable somewhere a compatibility mode. So it is an extension that behaves like a web app. Like if it was a package, web app is more or less like today we have the progressive web apps that you can install. And this was like a progressive web app before. Progressive web apps. And if you remember back in the day, there were also this Chrome app. So you can actually, you could actually install an app in Chrome and it will behave like an application, but they phased that out. And that was one of the reasons I didn't implement it in that way. So I started with an extension and later I was thinking about migrating to a Chrome app, but then they communicate that it was going to be phased out. So then it stayed like

Gene: 19:56

any money off of them.

Guilherme: 19:58

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. So I think that's, but it's still even the extensions. How much money do they make now? They, even before they had a store, they, you could price them, but they are even phasing that out. I think they only need the extensions because it's an, or at least back in the day, it was a big advantage for them. And maybe it was a competitive thing. And now they. They know that they cannot take that back. It would be very, really bad because it would be then a competitive disadvantage if they decide to bring that out because of their browsers, no support it. But coming back to your question, it's you want install it and now the button is a bit hidden after you install it. This was also a hit Recent change for Chrome. So we'll have to go there in this button that looks like a puzzle and pin it to the task bar. And then you will see an icon. That's like an RSS icon. And if you press it, it's going to open a page that is packaged. So it's not loading from anywhere else it's installed in your computer. And. Simply you were greeted with a search bar where you can search for podcasts, subscribe to them, and then you'll have there your list of podcasts, the latest episodes that come in, you can put them in a playlist, play them directly there. It handles hot keys. Like if you have play powers in the keyboard, you can do it. And it's going to synchronize this list across computers. If you log in with your Chrome user. I don't know how that synchronization works with other browsers, because this is a bit of a three key feature.

Gene: 21:30

So are you using then the podcasting 2.0 index for the podcast search?

Guilherme: 21:35

I am using the index and I am also using iTunes. It was the one I used before and the reason other service, not so well known that I don't even remember right now. It's it was another search index that I used. But I think. Yeah. I was very glad when the index came around and they were like they are very open and stuff like that. So having another one, because I always saw tunes as a big risk because the day that they decide that I can not search anymore or something like that, then I am

Gene: 22:06

And I don't know if you listened to no agenda show Adam's podcasts, but he actually talked about the fact that Apple is going to be removing its index.

Guilherme: 22:15

Wow.

Gene: 22:16

So there. Yeah. And I, he talked about it. Like everybody knew about it, but I was like, wait a minute. This is the first time hearing about it. But he does talk to Apple podcasts, like on a regular basis. He, he knows those people and I guess Apple, according to him or at least my interpretation of what he said that let's qualify that way. Is that it looks like Apple is going to move to the same model as Spotify to where there'll be inside Apple podcasts that you basically have to be paying money for monthly to listen. And so they're

Guilherme: 22:52

a wall

Gene: 22:52

they're building a

Guilherme: 22:53

around their app, basically. Yeah.

Gene: 22:55

exactly. And an Apple is fully aware of the podcasting 2.0 index. So I think. In some ways this might have been an easy decision for them because they can just simply tell everybody while you're not really losing anything, just use these guys they're free, would be good for podcast index.

Guilherme: 23:10

yeah, that's true. That's true.

Gene: 23:11

But obviously Apple thinks that, so many people just care about their devices in their platform. And I love Apple devices. I've had them for, really since the 1980s is when I got my first Mac. So I'm older than a lot of people I'm sure, but it's software, their products, not even software, but really their offerings are just getting worse than the worst, I think. So I don't bother having an Apple tea. I've got physical Apple TVs. I don't have an Apple TV subscription because out of all the things that I watched that is the least interesting in terms of the shows they have. And same thing with, I used to have an Apple music subscription. Don't have that anymore. Just don't need it. So if they start charging money for podcasts or they go to a model that bundles like music plus podcasts, I would have no interest in that.

Guilherme: 24:01

yeah, to be honest, I have no idea how they made money. If they made money with podcasting. I think they integrated mainly as a marketing thing

Gene: 24:10

I think that's

Guilherme: 24:11

to attract people. And now they see that. They are basically serving the other apps. Of course their app has a lot of people using because it's, it comes in the device and it's very popular, but they don't have any advantage on simply letting people use their index. And sounds

Gene: 24:29

and I will say for my podcasts, at least I was a little surprised because I do use Apple products. I also have Android, but I don't really use it much. I use it mostly for testing, but yeah. The number one podcast player that listens to my podcast is Android based. So there's a lot of people not using Apple products to listen to podcasts.

Guilherme: 24:48

Yeah, I think. That it's a hard competition for Apple now. There is a lot of Android offerings and in the beginning, I think that Apple had some leverage, but today you look at the products and they are so similar. I think it's, you really have to like, The Apple thing, like the feel or whatever to decide going for the Apple option. I have an iPad and it's the only for work. I also use a Mac book. But DTI, iPad. I used and I was like, okay it doesn't do anything else then I can have with Android. And I still feel some quirks and there. It's not so magic. I would say I always start. Okay. That must be magic because a lot of people liked it, but I think these days, one is very similar to the other.

Gene: 25:37

I think it is. And I, big reason, certainly that I've stayed on the Apple platform is just the sheer number of apps that I've paid for. And I think I've probably spent over$10,000 on iOS apps. But remember I had it from, for over a decade, so from the first phone. And so as soon as you couldn't buy it, iOS apps, I started buying ones that look good. And right now, I'd say probably 10% of the apps. I can't even install anymore because they're no longer supported. And as iOS changes, they deprecate applications and then probably another. 80 to 90%. I used at some point, but I no longer do anything with them. So they're part of my catalog, but, and I could load them on, but I don't really. Use them. And I probably only use maybe at most 10% of all the apps I've purchased, but I've purchased so many. I've purchased hundreds of applications on that platform because they're all cheap. They're all under$10. So you don't even think about it. You just it's it's the cost of a CD worth of music to buy. It's not a big deal. So if an app, like I started looking for, I couldn't find a good calculator that does reverse Polish notation. So I started looking and I ended up buying like three or four different calculators just to test them out. And they finally found one that I liked and I'm not going to use the others, but I already paid for them. So now they're part of my available potential free downloads. And if I went no strictly to Android and I just like, how much would I have to rebuy? Just to get to the same place of even just the 10% of the usable apps that I have. And I probably use on it now, 15, 20 apps on a regular basis. So in the so far, I've just. Been like my Android phone is my second line and I hardly use it for anything, but I do use it for testing for podcasting, for apps, for other things, but, and there's nothing wrong. It's fast. The quality is the same. The camera's pretty good. Everything's fine. On the Android. It's just I know that I've got access to all these applications than the Apple platform. And so obviously that's the one I'm going to use. But let's talk about light and enough talking about Apple. Let's talk about podcasting 2.0. So first of all when did you first find out about it? And then how quickly after that, did you started getting involved? And then let's talk about some things you're looking forward to.

Guilherme: 27:58

Oh, that's a good question. It was. Somewhere last year in the end, like last quarter, something like that. I saw on the news. I don't remember where exactly, I think like when in Android, if you use Chrome, there is. It will present this news for you that it has some algorithm or whatever. And I think it showed me something about like Adam creating the index somewhere. And I was like, wow. I was really looking for something like that to not depend only on the iTunes thing. So I went after it and then I started to take a look at the API and things like that went into the Mastodon server. And started talking to Dave to autumn and implementing the search as the first thing. And then started talking to the guys like on the namespace and all that. And it's a quite interesting, I don't implement too much of the namespace right now only. I think the funding tag and the Valo tag for the developer Valor, I am very interested in. All the other things it's bringing. It's just that most of them present a challenge in your wax terms, you have to think about how to present it to the user. And that's something that I usually take a lot of time to do. And I have a lot of stuff. Like I want to do a bit of refactoring under the ground to better. Support that in new features. So it will take some time for me to implement those, all those other tags, but I think they bring a lot of value to the podcasting ecosystem and tooling. I'm quite happy to see these things like Person tag like the funding so that people can put their, like where exactly they want to get donations and things like that, so that you can present this to the users in a easier way. So this kind of standardization was something that was needed in podcasting for a long time, I guess.

Gene: 29:52

And things like that, like the hosts and the funding is useful for the podcast creator, but from a user standpoint, I think there's a lot of very useful things. Like the ability to change the image with each chapter is really

Guilherme: 30:07

Yeah, that's pretty

Gene: 30:08

I use that all the time having chapters that people can jump to now, I. I originally said, and I still believe that really, when I'm creating a podcast, I'm not creating it as a bunch of segments. I'm creating it as one continuous show that should be listened to all the way through. And I used to say screw everybody else. I don't want them to listen to if they don't want to listen to the whole thing. But then when I started realizing that the chapters weren't just a place for people to jump to, but they were. Something that could make it easier to find a clip, to send to a friend, they were something that had an image alongside of it. And the end and each chapter can have a link leaving the chapter. So if I'm doing a podcast that refers to a new story, I actually will link from I'll have a photo from the story and I'll link directly back to a web article of the thing I'm talking about, which is very useful. So I think all of those have been great for listeners. And then of course the ability to do the Bitcoin streaming has been, neat. But I eventually, that's going to be the most important thing for motivating podcasts. There's and I've said this before, and I really believe that it's not the amount of money that you're getting. It's that you're getting something and seeing people listening to your podcasts and they have the Bitcoin streaming turned on seeing that money coming in, even though it's tiny little amounts is it's motivation to make another episode to keep doing it. And that's the biggest problem with podcasts. There's I dunno if you've done one before, but you do 10 episodes and then you stop because it feels like work. Yeah. You're not getting anything out of it. It's wow, I have to do research. I have to record. I have to edit. I have to publish. I'm paying bills for hosting, and then I'm not getting anything out of it. And I'm hoping somebody enjoys it, but you don't hear back. And. General, you're not going to get donations until it's much, much bigger but, so what would you like to see coming down out of podcasting 2.0 or maybe podcasting 2.1. What kind of features do you think would be useful to add that aren't currently in there?

Guilherme: 32:12

Ah, there is, Oh man, that's a hard question. I think there's so many features there already. I think they did not talk too much about support for other social networks. Like for instance, you, but there. Like a tag, like a social tag where you say, this is my Twitter handle or dessert, the Twitter handle of the persons and stuff like that. And then you can, if from my app, I share that episode. They can already tag the people that are in the episode. I think this kind of stuff would be

Gene: 32:44

Hm.

Guilherme: 32:45

I drafted an namespace for that sometime ago, but I didn't invest any time trying to promote it and stuff. I had some other things to do. Think that these, this would be something interesting what they want to bring with putting some kind of comments or chats is something interesting. But technically I think it's very challenging. I don't know how that's going to. Going to turn out but it's very interesting. I don't have one particular feature right now that I would say I'm looking forward, but the whole thing it's quite nice that we are basically looking in many ways to modernize. Podcasting is in general for the Valo thing. Th this was something I wanted before, not necessarily with crypto and things like that, but I always wanted a way that I would say, Hey, my budget is, I don't know, like Netflix, you pay nine. Dollars or$11 or whatever a month and you don't worry about. And somehow you hope that money is going to contribute to the development of the things you watch and hear. It could be something similar. Or right now we are talking about saying, I will give$1 or whatever, their hour of content, but you could also have a different motto that is, I will pledge$10 a month or.$3 a week, something like that. And then the software would account everything and listen that we can then split and then goes because then you say, okay, wait, I cannot commit to two. Say I, I give$1 per hour, but I can commit to say give$3 per week. And then at least it's something. And then you can do this split. My problem with models like a Patrion or PayPal, is that. It's very bureaucratic. If you will listen to a lot of shows and you would like to split something across them, it's I have to give$1 to this one, five to that one, something that it's hard and it amounts to a lot. If you could reverse this and say no reserve$10 per month and the software distributes in whatever way. And it's automatic, then. Th this would be much, much easier. And that comes together with that idea of having some kind of virtual wallet somewhere. And I say, Hey, but$10 here every month. And my software here on the other end is going to spread. This is$10 and send to the podcasters and whoever is in the valid block. And yeah, you don't worry about it. It's simply there. And for. For the podcasters, it would also be great. So yeah, I think that's the most incredible feature.

Gene: 35:31

Could be done right now. Really with what's already in the index, there's no reason that a developer couldn't have instead of paying every minute, which is what's been. The standard for the last few apps, but it doesn't have to be, what you're getting is an address to send crypto to. And so you could just measure over the course of a week or a month, I think a month might be a little too long, but certainly you could measure over the course of a week and then once a week send large payments out to that same address. Based on the proportion of what the person has been listening to.

Guilherme: 36:05

yeah, I would say week is a good sweet spot, especially because most podcasts, if they re. I think most of them released once a week or in some kind of weekly basis.

Gene: 36:14

not this one.

Guilherme: 36:15

it's a very good way of doing it.

Gene: 36:17

I do every other day. So either three or four week. Yeah.

Guilherme: 36:20

Yeah. Anyway, if it's more than a week, then there's a, you account weekly. Still the distribution should be somewhat fair because yeah, if you listen to one hour of this podcast and three hours of another, that week, it's going to simply distribute it in that way. Which yeah it's great because the protocol like the namespace, it doesn't tell you how to do it. It just that way, how to split it and you can be creative about it. Yeah. And the whole way through that.

Gene: 36:49

No, and I think that's the one thing I haven't run into because I'm not developing this stuff. I'm just participating, but there could be some complicated math involved because you don't necessarily have to have the same people assigned to each podcast. So typically it's either one host or two hosts or maybe three hosts, but you could have a podcaster who actually puts his guests into that people split position as well. I'm not going to do that. So don't expect to get any any SATs from me. It I'm keeping all of it, but I can certainly envision some people doing that where every episode that might have a different value for that split, which would certainly complicate it. If you're waiting a week or a whole month, certainly to pay out, you may have to pay, a lot more different wallets that way.

Guilherme: 37:43

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. But imagine if you were doing it live or every minute you would still have to do it, like splitting a lot of wallets. So the only difference is you sum that up and you do one transfer to which destination let's say, or once. And I think that could even be cheaper in terms of

Gene: 38:06

Yeah. From a practical standpoint, I think that is better because there's less transactions happening, I think right now, because it's a brand new feature. It's really cool just to see those donations coming in every minute. And I'm not, my podcast is nowhere near the size of Adam, so I wouldn't see them. Every minute, unless that was a feature now for Adam's podcast for no agenda, they may have, even if it was done, once a week, they may still have donations coming in every single minute. Just those it's just whenever those the weekends for that person. But for smaller podcasts, I think it is kinda neat seeing those amounts coming in, but you're absolutely right. It's it really doesn't make any difference if it's just one big amount or in fact. I will say this. I think it would be better if it was one bigger amount for a simple reason, is it makes it easier to calculate splits because one of the problems that I ran into, problem as a podcast or not problem as a developer or anything is that as the donation size gets smaller, the percentages get bigger. Like you were saying, that's the S the standard that seems to be emerging is the index gets 1%. The app gets 1%, and then if there's some fees from the exchange, they might get something or from the note or whatever, and then the podcasts, or it gets everything else. If you're streaming 10 SATs there's a default right now that you can't change for pod friend then. It's no longer 1%. It's actually 10%. The index gets 10% pot friend gets 10% and then the podcasts or gets what's left. So you have people that are, it sets 10 SATs, but what you're actually seeing is either seven or eight coming in.

Guilherme: 39:51

yeah, that, that gets complicated, but it depends on how you implement. And I think that's where we are still discussing a lot and getting my tour. And then every, that the thing is every app is free to implement. However they want. That's a, that's the beauty of it, but also what will bring a lot of confusion what I do for instance, If you connect to an L and D note, that you can set the max fee for the transfer. So let's say you set for 1%, it will only transfer if it's bigger that or if the amount is big enough so that the fee is going to be lower than 1%. And. Then, if it's not, I don't throw it away. I accumulate it in the background, but I'm only doing that in memories. So if you stop and then you close your browser, you lose it. It's a pity. But at some point in the future, I would like to have some kind of sophisticated accounting. Engine, let's say behind it that would take care of that. What could be a problem is let's say you have a guest that appeared in a single podcast and Bitcoin is so high that the guy was for a full episode is going to account for. Tool sets or something like that, it's possible that he never gets that, or she never gets that because it will never be a decent fee. And of course you don't one to pay one set to send one set that's a bit too much.

Gene: 41:17

Yeah. Yeah. And that's that the closer you get to that. And so the micro-transactions are neat and it's fun to see them continuously, but if you're aggregating them, even if it's just for 24 hours or even one hour, if you just aggregate them and then you send them once per hour, then you're that transaction fee. Is the same, regardless of whether you're sending 10 cents or if you're sending a thousand sets the transaction. It's, there's a slight difference, but it's not, you're not going to notice it with a thousand sets. You will with 10,000 sets for sure. But either way, it's a much smaller percentage fee. Then, if you're sending 10 sets at a time where you can end up literally losing 30% of your donation, just to things that are outside of the podcasts, or whereas normally it'd be more like two or 3% you would lose.

Guilherme: 42:10

Yep. And one of the challenges is also if you are paying once a month, A week or something. You want to present that to the user in a nice way. You want to say, Hey, this is what I'm going to pay. They want to pay automatically. Do you want me to call your attention? Then you review and click a button or something like that, but he will want to show. You play at these episodes and this much time, and each of these ones accounted for this much money and you'll probably also want to convert to feared currency because I think people will take a lot of time to start thinking in Satoshi's or whatever, or maybe they will never, because it's such a complicated number. It's usually big and it's hard to think about big numbers I've been in, in my country. Around the nineties, there was a lot of inflation and that everything costs like a thousand, some things, and more, it becomes very difficult if you have to do this, like it.

Gene: 43:04

Yeah I was in Italy when they had crazy inflation in the 1970s. I remember going to the middle of Lira, where, before you had the Lira. So like now it's a thousand liter. So yeah, it's a, that's a Tashi is one, 100000000th of a Bitcoin and the Bitcoin. I think it's around 60,000 us dollars right now, but it's literally going up and down every day. It's mostly up, but certainly sometimes down. So it's too much math to have to think about in your head.

Guilherme: 43:37

Yeah, that's true.

Gene: 43:38

All right. I know we've got a little long here, but I think it was a great conversation. And I certainly appreciate your time in jumping on here, telling us a little bit about pod station a little bit about your background and What we can look forward to in, in more podcasting, 2.0.

Guilherme: 43:53

Thank you. It was a very great talk, a very nice way for me to end the day it's as we mentioned before, different time zones. So I think you are in the middle of the day. There I am ending my day here, but it is pretty cool. Thanks for inviting me.