Last month, a New York Times piece heralded the arrival of Luminary. The story focused on the startup’s healthy funding (almost $100 million) and its “subscription-based business model that it hopes will push the medium into a new phase of growth.” You’d be hard-pressed to find better circumstances under which to launch your startup.
A month and a half later, Luminary is live, and most of that good will seems to have evaporated. A number of prominent podcast hosts have requested that their shows be pulled from the “Netflix of podcasts.”
The $8 a month premium service has added shows to its walled-off network without the permission of creators. There are several TechCrunch shows up there, including Original Content, Mixtape, Equity and several now defunct titles. My personal podcast somehow made it on there, as well.
In some ways, it’s not entirely dissimilar from the way services like iTunes provide podcasts, but many have complained about a key issue with how…
