I always find it so off putting when you listen to a podcast that is in it's third episode and the host is going on and on about how "the show has to sustain itself", in some kind of passive aggressive veiled threat. Go to hell, dickhead. Enjoy doing what you do or go find something else.

A podcast is not expensive to run. That's why literally everybody has one. The barrier to entry is insanely low. We are on year four of Overnight Drive and I sincerely doubt that either of us are in this over $1000. It's effort heavy and cash cheap.

But what we're both starting to learn is that running a podcast and growing a podcast are not the same thing. We get offers to do live shows somewhat often, have some interesting pitches that come through, and larger ideas that we'd like to make real. But more often than not I wind up passing on them just due to the fact that our system is a bit of a mess. People extending us these offers are forced to take on the bulk of the risk and that's hard to justify when your entire playbook is "let's go up and wing it." We appreciate the hell out of everything that is extended to us, but it never feels like we can add the value that we want.

The traditional antidote to this is to sell advertising. I see the benefit on paper. More stakeholders means more accountability and greater means to grow. But the problem here is basic. Advertising sucks. It sucks to do, it sucks to listen to people do it. Nearly everything moving backwards on the web can be traced back to advertising. The people who create it and perpetuate it suck. It's manipulative and ruins art and confuses creators as to where their time is best spent. Is there any part of you that honestly thinks that I would ever have a stake in what kind of online shop platform you use? Would that ever be a genuine moment of insight in our podcast? 

It's naive of me to say that I will never be in a position where I have to use a traditional advertising model. Life is long and I've got a lot of things I want to do. But it's easy for me to say that we will not be taking ad money on Overnight Drive. It's just not going to be a thing.

So as our options are narrowed considerably by having adult brains and consciences, we were left with crowdfunding. Again, good on paper but the model largely didn't fit our output. As I started to explore the idea of user support, I came to three non-negotiables for any platform I would feel comfortable using.

1. Be unintrusive - Reading on-air ads seems to be the most undignified act in podcasting today and creates a shitty experience for the listener. The appropriate platform would have no editorial impact.
2. Be reasonable - Other platforms would either require listeners to pay $10 or $20 a month, or offer a tiered model, which is some draconian shit. We don't podcast to hedge fund managers and it's hostile to pretend that $10 to me means the same thing to you.
3. Be accountable - While it would ideally improve our workflow, it couldn't jeopardize our content by imposing a strict timeline or punish supporters by inducing a variable into the support value. In plain English: we don't want bosses but we don't want to fuck you out of money if we miss a week from time to time.

No crowdfunding platforms managed to meet all three of these requirements until Patreon allowed for a per-episode subscription as opposed to a per-month. I don't know if this is a new thing, or if they have always offered it and I'm just dumb as shit and can't read. In any event, it meets our list of demands. So our ideal model is very simple: a suggested patronage of $1 per episode. Ideally four episodes per month (never more than five). You can give more than that if you like, you can give nothing at all. Entirely up to you.

As the podcast becomes self sufficient and hopefully beyond, we can start to work towards some of the loftier goals that have been outside our reach

• Improving our equipment & upgrading our bandwidth for Skype interviews, group episodes, etc.
• Creating a more centralized site for people to go for our latest episodes & other news rather than always trying to keep five different social media accounts up to date
• Maintaining a full archive and other weird projects like "The Thing"
• More live shows and the possibility of touring
• Quicker turnaround on merchandise fulfillment
• Finally get that weird intern we've been searching for

So here's the bottom line. We aren't going to stop Overnight Drive. It keeps us happy and sane. We aren't going to hold our listeners hostage and waste your time pretending that we prefer one web hosting platform or underwear company over another. We aren't going to upsell you on some pay-only episode bullshit. That's all very gauche and outdated. This podcast will continue on for free regardless of support, perhaps until one of our deaths. Time will tell on that. If the projects above are something you want to see happen, jumping into the donation pool would be a very cool move and we would super appreciate it. Over the next few days and weeks we'll have some bonuses to offer and some non-episode content for our backers coming down the pipeline as a thank you, so check back often and thanks for your support.

Tell your weird friend.

-Andrew, 3/24/17