Awww… I miss @ant_pruitt already. Such s great addition. Must have been a terribly tough decision.
Give us a premium tier in the club already. No need for additional services. Just offer a 15 bucks tier for fans, @Leo . I listen to you about ten hours a week, 45 hours a month. You guys are worth far more than 30 cents an hour.
I’ve been watching Ant’s Buy me a coffee page, there are a lot of very generous people out there, who appreciate him. 
Here is his blog about the decision:
I always imagined Jason taking over when Leo eventually retired.
Bummer for those guys. I think they’ll do fine, a lot of talent there.
Didnt see this coming. Jason and Ant were fixtures on the On Camera side. I guess i would have felt better if the were moving on at their own request, as many others have. But Being laid off… It sounds like the beginning of the end. Or the beginning of considerable retrenchment as Leo heads toward retirement. I always thought that Jason, Ant, and Micah were been groomed to take over a lot of the day to day as Leo retired…but i guess not.
Ive heard all that Leo has said about impending financial doom… and idk that i would make the same decisions “if i were King” , …
I feel like id like to write to Lisa sometime and express my feelings…especially the reasons that I havent joined club twit yet.
I would love to be supportive, and believe me , 7 bucks is nothing. but its not the money…TBH…and i apologize if this is not received well…I dont really know what im supporting. I dont care about listening to commercials. Like many others, I enjoy listening to Leo do host read commercials. He is a master at it, and it is a lost art. So taking the commercials out, for me, is a minus. And a lot of the other club things just are too techy for me. But otoh, I would like to support :journalist rountables", like TWIG.
Oh well…gotta go…phone calls…
You can specify your payment amount in your Club TWiT membership settings. I “premiumized” my account last month when they stopped doing the live streams. Totally agree, the content is worth more than $7 a month.
In a vacuum perhaps, but this is indicative of a much larger problem in the industry
So let me quote from above…
NYT…“the dumb money era is over” I dont think the TWIT was living on dumb money, so this part of the ailing podcast market doesnt apply to TWIT.
Slate…“The medium is fine”
Vulture…“this could be a tough year for the podcast industry” Could be?? Hardly sounds like the industry is shutting down.
My personal feeling is that TWIT has a really good product, and that slow and steady wins the race.
For me, having been listening to TWIT for about 5 years now, Jason and Ant have been 2 of the pillars of the TWIT operation. So seeing them go, is like cutting off a limb. OTOH, i realize that those who have been around a LOT longer have seen talent come and go, and the product survive. Just seems to me that Jason and Ant went over and above, wearing a lot of different hats at twit,doing what needed to be done. Finding dedicated employees like that…i dont think its going to be that easy. I think for more ppl than one might realize these days…everything is just a job for a paycheck, nothing more.
Also, I have no idea what when on in the “room where it happened” Were ppl just called in and told “we have to let u go”, or were ppl offered deferred pay, or were ppl offered a stake in the company in exchange for taking less salary? IDK.
I think the $7.99 a monrth is a steal for what TWiT offers. I think most Club TWiT members would probably happily pay $9.99/month. $2.00 extra a month won’t hurt my pocketbook any, and I’m sure it could really help TWiT.
Maybe create a second optional tier that we can subscribe to for $10/month. The only benefit needs ot be that we keep TWiT alive.
It’s sad that the podcast industry is so rough.
I would heartily suggest that it isnt the podcast industry that’s rough, its the advertising industry thats rough. Leo has said that his real dream is to have a solely listener supported operation. Unfortunately, at this time, the numbers dont support that happening. Advertisers want listener metrics which , I believe, the TWIT founder is against. Ive also heard some chatter (i could be wrong) that advertisers want a less expensive alternative to host read ads. Actually, fwiw, i think having canned sponsor created ads would help the Club Twit membership a lot…bc those ads are SO annoying. Leo’s host read ads i find a pleasure to listen to.
IMHO only…FWIW
Staff and shows? The last few years have seen cuts to both as TWiT’s ad dollars have declined. Am I missing something?
Let me rephrase this. There are some things about TWIT that i like , and some things that are not in my interest. . Honestly, I dont find that what the club offers is in my wheelhouse, but thats just me.
So the 7 bucks a month, at least from me, is a donation. And i dont know how i feel about donating to a for profit company, Is that fair enough? There’s a whole lot more I could say, but i dont think this is the place.
I run a business, and I like to talk business…but that sometimes involves asking tough questions, and this is not the place.
I wish TWIT the best. It offers a good product. The question is how to best monitize it.
For me - paying $7 a month for ad-free podcasts is worth it. But if I had the time, the Discord chat and the opportunity to interact with hosts during a show are both worth it as well. Combined - I get real value for what I pay.
I get it that perhaps some of those benefits are not for you. At a minimum - I would think the value of all TWIT podcasts being ad-free is worth $7 a month, but that’s me.
Love my TWiT family and the TWiT listeners. Grateful for the opps and experiences. There’s nothing like sitting next to someone you’ve enjoyed and admired for years as a broadcast do their thing. So many times I had to remind myself “dude you’re ON THE SHOW, right now. You’re not in fan mode.” 
It’s always sad to hear people getting laid off, but they’ll come out OK. I can’t help feeling that; if Jason got laid off when he’s been with TWiT from almost the beginning, as far as I can tell, is anyone safe?
You were one of my favorites on any panel. Sad to see your departure but hopefully a possible guest appearance in the future with an update on how you’re thriving!
Wishing you the absolute best of luck!
It’s a real shame more people don’t understand this basic transaction.
Ad-supported internet content+services are a vestige from the past, a flash in the pan from a time before anyone trusted ecommerce. All those dot-coms back in the day needed to inflate the value of advertising to justify their insane valuations, and while the short term bubble (those individual properties) burst back in the early 00’s, the long term bubble (shotgun style advertising) is just now bursting years later. Good riddance.
Bottom line - if you find value in someone’s work, pay them for it. That’s the foundation of basic economics.
That is exactly how it felt for me, when I did the Fireside Chat with you. Don’t sell yourself short, you are also that someone for many of us. 
It appears that Micah might be the chosen one, maybe that is why he was not laid off (even though he is one of the newest hires between the three) and Jason was laid off even though he has a lot more seniority. Or maybe he was chosen because I assume that he was paid more (due to him being employed much longer).
I enjoy listening, but will never join the club, one reason being that I don’t enjoy the political bent that some shows get on from time to time. I don’t want to pay for that.
I don’t consider paying for Club TWIT to be subsidizing the opinions of the hosts. I consider it to be paying for an ad-free podcast. Mostly because the opinions of the hosts are going to be there regardless of whether or not I pay for anything.
Maybe, but I don’t mind adds and don’t want to reward condoning that activity on the network, maybe that is some of the reason for the lack of advertisers.
Plus I have so many podcasts that I listen to for free and so many more that I would like to and don’t have time for, that I just can’t bring myself to pay for any. When some go away, others take there place.