Thanks for producing this Peter, it’s very helpful. I sent you some metric data on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, but now that I’ve seen the post, I can give you the best numbers for the table. I would suggest putting these figures in instead.
Net new podcast subscribers added
2017 − 4,600
2018 − 10,500
Total podcast downloads/plays
2017 − 87,600 (average episode length 1.61 hours.)
2018 − 517,100 (average episode length 1.97 hours.)
Notes on interpretation
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The podcast only started half way through 2017, I’m not sure how you want to handle that.
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Those are the maximum number of subscribers recorded at any point in the year. It’s probably a few % too high in both cases, but I’ve found that’s the measure most robust to random measurement variations. The overestimation should also be constant year to year.
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Podcast downloads/plays don’t correspond to actual times people listened to a full episode. They include people pressing play but only listening to a few seconds; bots downloading the show; automatic downloads by the podcasting software that are never actually listened to; and so on. So they’re massive overestimates of the number of times an episode was listened to, say, half way to completion. However, the overestimate is likely to be a pretty constant fraction year-to-year, so you can still make relative comparisons.
— RW
Just a visual metaphor of most centuries being boring and only a few standing out as uniquely influential.