What does it mean to be an iconoclast in podcasting?

There’s a scene in the US version of The Office (this is always how an intelligent person starts a blog post) that often replays in my mind. In it, two of the employees at Dunder Mifflin are arguing, inanely, about some major global problem, and the scene cuts to a to-camera shot from Creed, the show’s elliptical quality control expert. “I’m loving the debate,” he announces, with total sincerity. “Great minds battling it out, and I’ve got a front row seat.”

This two-second clip plays in my head, unironically, whenever I see two different people (or groups of people) who I respect, arguing with one another. And this week, that’s been a debate that’s taken place here, on the hallowed pages of Medium.com, between Mike Mignano, founder of Anchor and former Head of Podcasts at Spotify, and James Cridland, author of the excellent and essential PodNews newsletter.

Mignano published an article called ‘The Standards Innovation Paradox’ (a nicely grandiose name for a blog; very much the sort of thing I’d do) which you can, and should, read here. In his piece, which uses podcasting as its foremost example, though it has applications across tech, Mignano argues that standardisation (in podcast terms: RSS) is great for kickstarting momentum for a particular technology, but long-term stifles innovation and creativity. Without standardisation…