Ask Paul: August 25 (Premium)

Happy Friday and welcome to the final Ask Paul for August! Let’s kick off the weekend a bit early with another great set of reader questions.
OG TWiT
helix2301 asks:

Paul recently Steve Gibson announced he is not going to retire from Security Now and it was a big deal at TWIT Lisa, Leo, and a few others at the studio were caught on camera being excited to hear the show was going on. I think many people like me who have been with Twit since the early days forget you, Steve and Leo are like the originals on that network. TWIG and many of the other shows have had almost complete host turnover except for Leo.

I’ve always had a remote relationship with the other OG TWiT podcasts, but I’ve spent time with Steve and love the guy, and that’s true of many of the TWiG, MBW, whatever folks as well. And I’ve absolutely cherished the times I’ve been able to interact with them on various shows, which I’ve done many times over the years. Late last year, for example, I was in a year-end retrospective with Leo, Steve, Jeff Jarvis, and Doc Searls, I had never met Doc and really enjoyed meeting him and interacting with all of them. (I was also the youngest guy in the room, and I don’t get to say that much anymore.)

Point being, this thing is an extended family, and while it’s a remote family usually, it’s still a family, and so there’s a personal connection there across the board. I love being part of it, I love that we can keep doing it all these years later. I also do understand that things end, that it’s a business and times are tough right now, and that people are in different places and some may just want to move on. But that combination of sadness and respect when it does happen is, of course, familiar and normal.

I’ll do Windows Weekly as long as I’m able. I love Leo and Lisa (his wife) and what they’ve done for me, and I’ve loved everyone I’ve worked with, both inside of TWiT and the co-hosts I’ve had. But I know it will end at some point, and I do feel good about what we’ve done. I’m sure there are complaints, there always are. But I hope above all that it’s viewed as honest, informative, and entertaining. It’s a lot of work that I don’t mind at all.

Do you ever think hands-on windows will be released to non club twit members?

My guess is that it will never be successful enough on its own right for that to happen. And that the future of TWiT may in fact be purely subscription-based, meaning that if Club TWiT is truly successful, they won’t need to scrape and scrabble for advertisers anymore. But this is my view from the outside: I don’t have any insight into the business beyond what they tell me and say publicly.

I’m OK with that. And I would understand if the show didn’t meet some usage/interest standards. The nice thing for me is that it’s forced me to think about these topics more visually as opposed to writing. I’m not saying I’m any good at it, but as we move for...