With this and what Spotify is doing I foresee a future where podcasts are like streaming video: siloed across dozens of incredibly mediocre applications. Hopefully this doesn't lead to the locking down of the Apple Podcast Directory, which I believe is still the de facto standard source for most podcasts.
Are you thinking along the lines of people who make the podcast their full time jobs? Do you think the likelyhood of accomplishing this will be easier or harder for a given aspiring podcaster once a middleman controls their revenue, ability to distribute, and context of listening?
And honestly, I don't know the answer to that, all I know that is my experience is going to end up massively worse if authors keep choosing centralization.
> once a middleman controls their revenue, ability to distribute
Patreon already is their middleman that controls their revenue and ability to distribute premium content.