Free and Sustainability and Stuff
Fri, January 11, 2013 at 10:00AM 
Diane at CraftyPod has one of the smoothest voices I've ever heard. Smooth, perfect for radio, voice-overs, dubbing, and I could even hear her voice as a retro, 70's vibe character in a modern day cartoon. I've not heard Diane do Kareoke, but I bet it's a hoot.
And the mind that drives that voice has the ability to comprend the BIG PICTURE even as she fashions paper flowers. That this path of blogging and free and doing so very, very much for so many, with little financial reward, will not go on forever.
Here's what I see. There is more and more free, yet the quality of the free is dissolving, getting watered down with messages re-mixed and re-mingled and re-cycled and re-crafted. There's also more and more fee-based stuff, and folks gripe at the fees.
There's an inverse relationship between authenticity and unique ideas and the sum of creative consultants, SEO experts, doodle certifications, art kits, paint-by-numbers, copied and pasted journal posts, recycled material, pinterest boards. And copyrights ignored and trampled. And ideas summarized, confiscated and paraphrased.
So Diane has announced the END of the infamous CraftyPod Podcast. One podcast in a sea of podcasts. One voice in a sea of voices. But a sign that we should notice. Another sign that if we do not support FREE, we shall lose FREE. Because it's not really FREE to begin with.
And thanks to Diane for many years of crafty podcasty goodness.
Reader Comments (3)
I find that there is always a cycle with these things. It begins with a small group of people sharing a similar passion for a subject. People who are so excited about what they do that they find ways to share that information in hopes of finding a community of like minded people. Then someone figures out how to monetize the idea, which then sparks more people who want to make money off of this movement that has begun to take momentum. After a while it's just a bunch of voices that are no longer distinctive because they all sound the same. Eventually though the trend and popularity fades and your left with the group who love doing this with or without a paid workshop or being published in some magazine. Eventually inspiration will become free again. It just takes time.
Amen. And I'm sad to say I've never even heard one of them. I may to go through the archives!
Oh no! It's a sad day to hear that craftypod is no more... I haven't listened in a while, and it was only a week ago I saw her mentioned somewhere and thought, 'I need to download some more craftypods!'. What a shame she is wrapping things up - I agree, her voice was hypnotic!