Things are not looking good for Maddox at the end of this year.
- Sean, the audio engineer, has left Maddox's podcast for good, resulting in a drop in audio quality and listener interest, since Sean was pretty much a full time co-host in all but name.
- when people looked into Maddox's advertising partner (a company called Kendall & Hyde), they found the podcast is only making ~500 USD per episode (1 episode per week), which has to be split between him, his co-host, and his audio engineer.
- listeners/supporters of his podcast have been complaining that Kendall & Hyde is up to some shady business practices, namely failing to ship or refund orders placed on merchandise that is later discontinued. So many people have been contesting undelivered purchases made with K&H that credit card customer service lines now recognize the company by name.
The biggest recent revelation comes from Asterios Kokkinos, former comedy collaborator and friend of Maddox. Before the launch of his current podcast, Maddox confided to Asterios that he (maddox) paid 30 000 USD for a professional web design firm to make the new podcast's official website. Asterios tried to convince Maddox this was a terrible business move, advising him of alternatives (e.g. shopping around for a better quote, temporarily using free wordpress or tumblr type website design services, etc), but Maddox would not be swayed and stuck with his plan. At this point Maddox had already spent the 4 000 USD advance his publishers gave him two years ago for his yet unfinished book, he's living in a duplex he's only able to afford by splitting the rent with roommates, and he doesn't have any steady income aside from a pittance of merch sales from his old personal website and half of the revenue from the old podcast. People might still be buying his first book in spite of the infamous disavowing, but his second book was a total flop, so much so that the publishers changed the title in hopes of making it more appealing.
He's nearly 40 now and it doesn't look like his new podcast is going anywhere in terms of its own organic growth of popularity and interest. So in an age when anyone can distribute their content online at no financial cost to themselves, Maddox now thinks he can make his money back by offering to host other people's podcasts on his site and collecting a cut of their advertising, like he's a radio station or TV channel, in spite of the fact that the internet has now removed the monopoly any one person can hold over this kind of content distribution. That's his 30 000 USD endgame.
