This solo episode of Your Mic is a friendly exorcism for every creator who’s turned “the algorithm” into a deity.

Freddy breaks down what recommendation systems on platforms actually do—sort and surface content based on behavior—and how people still primarily find new podcasts through search, social, YouTube, and old-school word of mouth. Then he draws a hard line between building episodes for humans versus contorting your show to please a black box.

In this episode:

• What algorithms really optimize for (and what they don’t).
• How over-optimizing for “the feed” kills the very weirdness and honesty that fuel word-of-mouth growth.
• A practical two-part approach: serve the person, then respect the machine.

Subscribe to Your Mic on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@SpekePodcasting) , Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-mic/id1777171203) , Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/1PQNHuqxIVhkLfjGYuWcxl) or wherever you get your podcasts (https://omny.fm/shows/spekepodcasting/playlists/your-mic) .

Shoot Freddy an email: [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .