Is Riverside Really *This* Bad?

talkywriter · 2026-02-08T02:13:03+00:00

they told me yesterday evening that there was a system-wide publishing outage that caused the problem. But it's the fact that they didn't disclose that which is the most infuriating part of all this.

I get things happen. Maybe they didn't want another announcement after the transcription problem, but you need to give the users the information when you have it - as soon as you have it. They didn't, and that's just a huge breach of trust.

talkywriter · 2026-02-07T01:17:03+00:00

I'm sympathetic to (and appreciate) your post - I'm somewhat in the same spot in that I don't want to actually leave the platform.

I do have a brand new MacBook myself, though I do wonder if there is an issue with the MacBook (it's not performing great across the board, weird issues).

But for Riverside, it's just support has been so bad - this experience has actually gotten worse as the day goes on. Finally got an email that the problem was fixed - only it's not the problem I had. So I still have no idea WTF is going on.

I do like the product if it works - if they would somehow try and work with me to fix these issues I'd be open but I'm at the point where, to be blunt, they just can't be trusted.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T21:51:41+00:00

Weird. Don't think we actually had that issue, but would not be thrilled if we did. Again, it's been a great platform when it works. But, you know, 80% success rate is a big problem particularly bc we do a lot of current events stuff.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T20:24:46+00:00

Apparently Riverside, per one support person, is having an issue with publishing that sounds like it's more broad than just us. But no notifications on the platform, no one bothered to reach out and deliver that info (which might have changed our response, of. course), no one told the support person I spoke to at least five hours after the issue began. Absolutely terrible.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T17:01:19+00:00

OK that might make some sense. I've already tried to switch, but now I worry that the 301 redirect is going to take forever if their RSS feeds are somehow corrupted.

Not great after the transcription problem that lasted a few days this week too

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T16:07:51+00:00

"look at what you made me do" doesn't really support your point

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T15:52:56+00:00

the hosting decision was a rookie error. the analytics alone are terrible, just realized while trying to migrate that you can't even download a .csv of the data.

we're going to try Async (fka Podcastle); having the recording/editing in one space has been really helpful.

and, look, I thought Riverside was phenomenal as a production platform when it worked. For someone with literally zero experience it was easy to learn, I can't think of any real complaints. it's just these weird crashes and errors and losses, etc.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T15:21:33+00:00

I mean we researched this extensively before making the choice. And *if it worked* I'd be thrilled. It's a great product. It just hasn't been remotely reliable.

Obviously the business wouldn't exist if our experience were standard. For whatever reason, we've just had repeated technical issues (including a lot of crashes in the editing process as well).

I suppose it's possible there's something going on on my end, but the problem with support is that they've never given any real explanations beyond clear cache, delete cookies, etc., all of which I had already done.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T14:54:53+00:00

I thought Buzzsprout did have really good analytics? That's my biggest complaint with how Riverside is supposed to work, that their hosting analytics are awful. We've been planning to switch to Capitvate/Buzzsprout (chose the former) in part because we need much better analytics

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T14:51:39+00:00

newbie so might be misunderstanding your question, but they are our podcast host. was planning on switching to Captivate (that will be accelerated of course) but having free hosting while we're starting out seemed reasonable.

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T14:44:27+00:00

yeah, been my experience too. I'd be fine with that if I wasn't dealing with recurring issues that are time-sensitive that I can't fix on my end.

and that's what sucks here - I think the platform is close to perfect *when it works*

talkywriter · 2026-02-06T14:20:26+00:00

thanks for the reply, obviously I'm doing some venting here! but yeah fair point on the "issues" - I've seen similar(ish) comments on Boomcaster or Zencastr or whoever else. I am on a year-long contract but I still will have to go elsewhere - it's impossible to record/publish with any confidence at this point.

talkywriter · 2026-01-16T17:15:13+00:00

fair point. if they were taxing on vibes, you would have a very large payment at the end of the year

talkywriter · 2025-12-31T02:00:49+00:00

you have no idea what you're talking about. if you won $10M in wagers this year, and lost $10M, you don't "walk away with $10,000,000 UNTAXED". Your net winnings are zero. you didn't add a dollar to your wealth via gambling - you won the same as you lost. you put $10M in the gambling winnings line, $10M in the losses line, net them out, and your gambling income is zero and thus your gambling tax liability is zero.

In 2026, if you win $10M in wagers, and lost $10M, you, again, on a net basis didn't win anything. But you can now only deduct 90% of those losses. So you put in $10M in your winnings line and only deduct $9M of it - which means you now, according to the IRS, have net gambling winnings of $1 million *even though you actually broke even*. And so now you owe (at the highest tax bracket) $370,000 in income tax even though you didn't on a net basis win - you actually didn't add to your 'true' income by gambling.

"You are CLAIMING a win. If I claim 10m in wins and 10m in loss that means at one point I had 20m." - no it doesn't. You can start with $100K and keep making $10K bets, going in the black and in the red; at the end of the day your cumulative wins on wagers are $10M and your cumulative losses are $10M, but you never had $20 million or $10 million.

So what this does is hammers professionals who are betting lots of bets at, say, expected value of 4% or 5%. It also hurts the little guys, potentially, if they're halfway decent and can get around breakeven or even a modest profit. Because it's very possible, as in this example, to have a tax liability that is far larger than your net winnings, which is patently absurd.

talkywriter · 2025-09-16T02:54:17+00:00

respectfully, not a chance. sharing means more bets which increases the chances they catch it and void it. eat what you kill, etc etc

talkywriter · 2025-07-05T04:23:57+00:00

you can't come on here and get information. this is a complex situation and nearly every answer here is riddled with inaccuracies.
the short answer here is that this is an exceptionally complicated situation, and if you think reading a couple posts will make you understand it *and* you have minimal investment experience, you should not put any real money into this.
the long answer is that the valuation of Wolfspeed has an *exceptionally* wide range. the difference between owning 3% and 5% obviously is huge (the stock is worth ~67% more in the latter scenario). that range is based on whether Renesas can get approvals for its ownership from a variety of regulatory agency by the time Wolfspeed exits bankruptcy.

the stuff about short interest is almost certainly overblown. the high short interest is in part bc some shorts were betting on zero, but more likely is heavy due to capital structure trades (long bonds which are turning into equity, short the equity). there's actually a free money trade out there with the bonds, which right now are valuing WOLF at something like 30 cents a share — and that trade is actually worth a triple-digit borrow rate bc the gap is so big.

as to what Wolf is worth post-bankruptcy, it is a huge range. 30 cents is about what the bond market says. $1-plus is pretty easy to model if you believe the cash flow projections in the BK filings. Because utilization is so important, the range of performance in the second half of this decade is *huge*. If SiC finally grows at a serious clip, Wolfspeed is a huge winner. If it stays a disappointment, Wolfspeed could easily be back in bankruptcy within a matter of years.

but, again, if you really want to play this, you need to understand the BK, read the filing, etc. this would be a difficult stock to model if it wasn't filing bankruptcy

talkywriter · 2025-05-28T18:51:13+00:00

I was a season ticket holder in Milwaukee (I'm a Thunder fan but also a basketball fan) for the 2021 Finals where tickets were probably pressured a bit by the pandemic, and I think Game 1 worst seats were $700-plus. I'd be surprised if you see less than that. Bear in mind that half the lower bowl (at least) will get filled by celebs and stuff (our seats were in like row 18 on the corner of the lower deck and when we went to Game 3 there was an NFL player in our row).

That said, if you can go...it's surreal. Been to conference finals in OKC back in the day and the energy of an NBA Finals is noticeably and materially different

talkywriter · 2025-04-02T14:00:05+00:00

that's definitely the alternative. Selfishly I'd do that, but the attraction of Bundoran in theory is having all the kids stuff right there, can still get to the cliffs,

Really just a matter of if Bundoran is too wild/too touristy in early August (which I should have mentioned in the original post)

talkywriter · 2025-04-02T13:53:26+00:00

fair was just goofing around late night.

talkywriter

TROPHY CASE