At the end of our show, we often ask you, our listeners, to send in topics you'd like to hear about.

Every week, we get a ton of suggestions in our inbox, ranging from clothes hangers to model airplanes to mechanical bulls at dive bars.

But there's one request we get more than any other.

Hi, this is Greg from Longgrove, Illinois. Hi, my name is Justin from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Hello, this is Anne Hodgis, calling from Kingston, Jamaica.

Hi, this is James Cage from Duluth, Georgia. Hi, my name's Winnie. I live in Dallas, Texas.

My name is Todd, and I am from Phillipsburg, New Jersey, and I would love to hear an episode about podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts. Podcasts. Thanks very much, and I can't believe you're on a hundredth episode already. This is our 100th episode of the economics of everyday things. And for the occasion, we're going to

take the advice of Todd, Winnie, James, Anne, Justin, Greg, and many more of you, and turn the

mic on ourselves. We'll tell you about what goes into making an episode of this podcast,

how we explore ideas, find experts to talk to, check our facts, make the results sound good,

and most importantly, how we keep the lights on.

If we had our choice of no ads versus ads, we would take no ads, all of us would.

But there's this implicit trade-off.

Content doesn't just come to you for free. There's a cost.

For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crackett.

Today, podcasts, particularly the one you're listening to right now.

These days, it seems like everyone has a podcast. There are more than 6.5 million of them,

and they reach nearly 600 million listeners worldwide. There's a gazillion podcasts out there,

and they're all made slightly differently.

That's Gabe Roth. He's the executive director at Freakonomics Radio Network. And one of his many duties is to serve as the editor of the economics of everyday things.

There's the stereotypical podcast of like two dudes in their garage recording and then uploading the unedited recording.

But professional podcasting is not like that.

...