S03E01 Oscar Merry — What Joe Rogan Lost for $100M

S03E01 Oscar Merry — What Joe Rogan Lost for $100M

From Trust Revolution by Shawn Yeager

January 22, 2026 · 1h 8m · Season 3 · Episode 1

About this episode

Oscar Merry discusses the implications of Joe Rogan's exclusive deal with Spotify and the importance of audience ownership for creators.

“If you choose to go exclusive on Spotify, you're essentially saying to 70% of your existing and potential audience, ‘Sorry, you can't listen anymore.’” Oscar Merry watched Joe Rogan lose influence despite a $100 million payday—and built Fountain to prove there's a better way. Episode Summary Oscar Merry's Alexa skills hit #1 in productivity and earned $30,000 in six months. He moved on when the technology couldn't match the vision—and the gatekeepers made clear it wasn't going to. Now as CEO of Fountain, he's building infrastructure for creators who want to own their audience rather than rent access to them. The conversation maps the entire value chain—from how legacy media takes up to 90% of creator revenue with quarterly payouts to how open protocols enable instant payments with single-digit fees. Merry unpacks the Joe Rogan case study as proof that even $100 million can't compensate for lost reach and explains why Nostr's cross-app comments represent the most significant shift in content discovery since RSS. For creators sensing that platform dependence is a liability, this episode lays out what's actually working in open podcasting today—and what's still hard. About the…

People in this episode

Host: Shawn Yeager

Guest: Oscar Merry

Topics covered

  • podcasting
  • creator economy
  • media influence
  • open protocols
  • audience ownership

Keywords

  • Joe Rogan
  • Spotify
  • Fountain
  • podcasting
  • audience ownership
  • open protocols
  • creator revenue
  • Nostr
  • Alexa

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Spotify, Fountain, Amazon, Nostr

Books & works: Alexa

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