#I don't really have any reach or influence a large company like Goalhanger cares that much about

[eardefenders]

Hey maybe you shouldn’t be sharing any form of content that is paywalled for the purpose of generating financial support for smaller creators? It’s almost like they’re not sharing it publicly for a reason? It’s really disrespectful to Joel and the whole team, and if you’re just going to be in the patreon to leak the exclusive content so people don’t join for themselves then you should just leave :/

Fundamentally, I agree with you. Patreon is essentially a marketplace for people to support the artists and creators they love, financially, so they can keep on creating. To generate that support, they will paywall some of that stuff to create incentive for fans who don't yet contribute financially to do so.

However, when you start talking about a company such as Goalhanger then I think you're getting into a much greyer area of the purpose behind the Patreon. I mean, on a basic level, yes, it's for money, but on a podcast like this which is averaging 10s of thousands of downloads a month and contains ads (and household names, not just local mom n pops or sex shops, but like Tide Laundry Detergent), they aren't really propping the show up with Patreon supporters. They aren't indie; they aren't a small creator.

(In fact, I'd be downright shocked if there wasn't upfront payment from Goalhanger to commission the show from Joel and his team, or at the very least an agreed upon payment schedule with set bonuses should subscription/download targets be achieved.)

I'm not so sure I agree with you on the whole disrespectful bit. Downloading the audio from Patreon, stripping it of the DRM and releasing it is disrespectful. Me taking my personal time to listen to the same episode over and over and carefully write out the dialogue as I hear it so I can share it and discuss it with others would seem the opposite of disrespectful, it's the kind of dedicated worship and time giving creators generally think is neat in their fans (if sometimes worrying).

For what it's worth I did ask. If it was truly troubling, I would have received a takedown notice or at the very least, a strongly worded email that suggested I take the transcript(s) down of my own accord. (Which I also told them I would do if they found any issue with my creating transcripts down the line.) For now, they don't see it as an impact to their business. If anything, they likely think it provides a driver for people to sign up because the joy isn't just in reading in John and Sherlock's voices (if that were the case, we wouldn't care about the show and we'd all be blissfully on AO3), it's in hearing them. It's hearing them and making our own interpretations of every little hitch and stutter and breath. We want to hear the words spoken in their inflection and tone.

Lastly, your final line comes across a tiny bit rude and presumptuous. I'm not in the Patreon to simply leak exclusive content and especially not to purposely prevent people from joining. If that were the case I'd simply leak the audio and/or bash the shit out of the show. I also haven't transcribed all of the exclusive content they've posted, only the mailbags.

The reason I'm in the Patreon is because I love their show and the adaption. I think they're doing a wonderful job and that they should be paid for it and I'll happily give them some of my money for it. (I also want the free merch, tickets to a live meetup, and a personal message from John and Sherlock lol.)

Not every person will join the Patreon. A lot of people don't have the money to commit to a Patreon every month and I'm pretty sure the creators know not every single person will join. (Generally, your looking at a conversion rate between 1% and 5%. So, lets say that the 1 million downloads of Sh&Co represents actual unique listeners. That means even with 1 million people actively listening to the show, they're only expecting between 10 and 50,000 patrons on Patreon tops. ((Looking at the discord server which has 234 members currently and lets say that's every subscriber to Patreon that's a listener base of 5k-23k, but we know that it's much more likely that they're listener base is closer to 25k-50k given the numbers on other Goalhanger podcasts and that this is a Sherlock Holmes thing which is near universally a gold ticket project.)))

I'd add tone tags to this whole thing but I'm not actually sure how to/where to. Please consider the tone of this answer ranging from vaguely dispassionate to mildly miffed, but with nothing but respect for you Anon as you aren't the first person to bring this up and it's a, well, not entirely valid, but nonetheless reasonable thing to ask.