As someone who was/is in the circus world as well as software development, there are certain things that you can never learn without having access to the right people.
In circus, I had to travel to specific cities and work with specific coaches and pay them quite a premium to get access to the information that they knew - there is literally no alternative once you get to a high enough level.
My thoughts on the finance and geopolitics space is that there are some alternatives to the podcasts listed here, but they are really hard to find and aggregate and sort through all of the noise out there. I consider that a valuable enough service that I'm willing to pay and subscribe to the podcasts. I was also previously a subscriber to Lyn Alden's premium research service.
I like hearing what smart people have to say and I don't subscribe for "stock picks", so I'm not sure exactly why you would call this grift. It is a research service and almost like an auditory journal (is the Economist a grift too? the Financial Times?)
