@epilanthanomai @talios I appreciate hearing your perspective!
Here's the thing I find upsetting. Podcasting becomes popular because it's so open, so accessible, such a low barrier to entry for a whole ecosystem of hosts and directories and players, etc. Much like the web itself.
Then some corporate entities come along, gather up all that goodwill, and then use it to their advantage in a closed way—effectively stealing the brand.
Business gonna business, but it sure rubs me the wrong way.
@jaredwhite Oh, I'll happily go a step further and say it's flat-out harmful and wrong for them to do so, and harmful and wrong for journalists to report it neutrally as just a change in usage without a single critical word toward the harm done.
FWIW Doctorow has a good article up in the last few days about "enshittification" that's pretty adjacent to all this. It doesn't address this exact point, but I think it's a good and relevant read anyway.
/ @talios