Rex Hammock continues his series on "How Apple will change everything about Podcasting" with post #2 (How Much Could Howard Stern Make Podcasting via iTunes vs. Broadcasting via Sirius?). In this post he bashes micropayments and looks at business models in which podcasters act as buying agents for their listeners, providing them with music and getting a kickback (ahem, commission) from the fees the listeners pay. A very interesting model, whose basic idea I like. However, the current economics of paying for downloaded music ($0.99/track) make this most likely a non-starter.

At that price, how many tracks will I buy a month? Not many, perhaps a dozen or so. How will I allocate my buying agents, knowing that every bad choice they make essentially costs me a dollar? Not sure I'd be too experimental in such a case.

However, drop the price substantially and this starts to look much better. Might this not work with a voluntary alternative compensation scheme as well? Lower prices for higher volume?

Things to consider.