To be fair, a lot of podcasts have ads, but ads aren't what I'm objecting to. The modern web doesn't suck because of ads. It sucks because of the technologies around ensuring you look at the ads, around sharing your behaviors as you look at the ads, etc.
Any podcast player I can imagine anyone would ever use has a convenient way to skip ads, and the neither the presence of the ads themselves nor my decision to skip them degrades the experience of listening to the podcast. My podcast player doesn't demand I look at Forbes' "thought of the day" or disable my fast-forward button in order to play. It doesn't connect to 280 random third-party tracking domains as I listen to an episode. It downloads a file and plays that file for me.
Who really cares that much about ads that don't track you or destroy your experience?
> and the neither the presence of the ads themselves nor my decision to skip them degrades the experience of listening to the podcast
I beg to differ.
I see the ability to skip ads immediately, at any time, as a fundamental user right (and websites that try to deny this right should be prosecute by consumer protection). In other words, this is not the distinction between good versus bad quality. It is the distinction between merely acceptable versus totally inacceptable.
With regard to quality, it is a huge jump upwards if a podcast has no ads at all, nowhere, not even hidden or implicit. It is a really noticeable difference if the whole audio simply doesn't care about pleasing any stakeholder besides its audience.
I cannot agree with this sentiment. You're basically demanding that these creators work for you, for free.
If you choose to skip the ads, then how should the creators be compensated for the content that you consumed?
"With regard to quality, it is a huge jump upwards if a podcast has no ads at all, nowhere, not even hidden or implicit. It is a really noticeable difference if the whole audio simply doesn't care about pleasing any stakeholder besides its audience."
You know what else is a huge jump in quality? Actually being able to continue to do the show.
Nobody is entitled to a business model. If ads don't work for your users, find one that does (I hear people have some success with Patronite these days, for example). If there is none, then maybe it isn't good to try to make a business out of it in the first place.
There's way too much "content" these days anyway, and the worst of it is the one that is done to make money (as opposed to labour of love, or having external funding independent of content's performance - like patronage, being considered a "marketing expense", etc.).
> I hear people have some success with Patronite these days
Moreover, direct donations [1] are working quite well, at least for the popular podcasts. (But then, only the very popular podcasts make a fortune anyway.)
Here in Germany, SEPA standing orders are quite popular for fans to support their favourites.
Also, buying stuff and sending that to the Podcasters is quite popular for some formats (either specialized stuff like high-quality chocolate from people working in that business, or just buying random stuff from a podcaster's Amazon wishlist.)
[1] Well, legally this is still plain income rather than donations, so you still have to pay taxes. Unless, of course, that income is very small and/or you create a non-profit organization around your podcast.
You're saying this like you're entitled to the content, though. You're not. And quite frankly, I find taking the content without supporting the creator to be much, much worse than you consider ads to be.
Either talk about something you care about a lot and do it for the love, or remember you're competing against students doing this for the fun or as an exercise.
> My podcast player doesn't demand I look at Forbes' "thought of the day" or disable my fast-forward button in order to play. It doesn't connect to 280 random third-party tracking domains as I listen to an episode.
Yet.
There's an easy-to-imagine scenario where advertisers bribe podcast playing software creators to embed these "features" for a cut of the money.
I mean, the whole point (and value) of podcasts is to remove the private radio station crap, not to replicate it.
BTW, the German podcast scene is a quite positive example of the directions podcasts can go.