Philosophy Talk Starters Philosophy Talk Starters

I, too, was irked by these teaser shorts. I was even more irked to learn one must subscribe and pay $ to hear full podcasts and access archives. However, I emailed the show and received an explanation: Stanford U doesn’t pay a cent to support this show. Further, there is a restriction on advertising because the show is recorded on the campus. Thus, their only choice was to make it available by subscription. The cost is reasonable in the Scheme of All Things, about $6 to $8 monthly depending on the length you choose. I have blown a lot more on worse things.

It hurts me to rate this so poorly. I get that you have to make money and are restricted on advertising. But, c’mon! Find a way to get it done so you can put a full episode up and not just a few minutes. Is the restriction because you record on campus? Then record off campus. Or whatever works. This method of putting up a couple minutes and then wanting us to search elsewhere for a paid download is awful. It adds so much friction to the process that it grinds to a halt. It could be a really interesting podcast, but I’m afraid I’m so discouraged with this process that I’m just deleting it from my playlist. Again, it’s painful because I think the content can be excellent. But I have about ten minutes a week to download a few hours of podcasts, and there’s just too much quality stuff out there that requires a single click and is frictionless.

Phil Talk is superb -- but why can't full episodes be downloaded. The short segments are teases.