Darknet Diaries + the Hackable podcast. When I was in-office and walked to work years ago, I cranked through so many episodes of each.

Democratization of a medium always bring lots of crap into the space.

I love listening to podcasts, but I absolutely hate sifting through the garbage to find something decent.

I don't really know what kind of crap people making these memes listen to.

I come across a shit tons of podcast snippet while doomscrolling yt shorts, and a huge load of it is really just that stupid. Of course a dislike and "not interested" will shift the algorithm but from time to time they still pops up.

Podcasts are so SLOW though! I would rather read something for 5-15 minutes then to have it talked at me for an hour, at a pace almost entirely not of my choosing (though if I must listen I will usually increase it to ~2x rate), with no ability to search through it again later to jog my memory.

There is a reason that people consider podcasts as something for bored people to do while driving or being driven somewhere (e.g. riding in a train). Podcasts are done by people who enjoy hearing the sound of their own voices - they have a timeslot to fill (e.g. an hour) and they will fill that space to take exactly that time regardless of whether the content would have been better served by being presented in other means.

i.e. they are for entertainment, not primarily information delivery.

Music is also for entertainment, but unlike podcasts if the music would be better to last let's say 3 minutes than 5, then it will be adjusted in that manner. By repetitive practice and continual edits, the music will get better and better, whereas a one-off podcast that is pooped out on the spot for the purpose of either capitalistic gain or at least fame for the podcaster can be enjoyable to some, but does not improve. Of course some podcasts are better than some music productions.

Podcasts have their niche, ofc. But a good podcast might succeed almost in spite of the podcast format, rather than because of it?

I love Behind the Bastards and I feel for your poor poor psyche

Yeah, I've also listened to podcasts that were essentially radio plays like Alice Isn't Dead. The format is spoken media, unfortunately yes like with radio the majority devolved into lowest common denominator shit with the "dude bro verbal wank" being the equivalent of the morning zoo radio show and the right wing political rants being the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh et al. But there's people talking about things worth listening to

Hell, one of the coolest ones is Making Gay History where a man who interviewed a bunch of pioneers of gay history in the 80s for a book of the same name released the original audio. For anyone interested in the topic it's absolutely worth a listen.

I listen to music. There's an endless amount of bands I want to listen again, and another endless amount of bands I never heard that I'm trying to discover. And then there's a streaming service dedicated to classical music. I don't have enough hours during my work to listen to all of it, but I do my best. I probably average 6h per day listening to music.

If you're wondering, I'm a software developer. And I also listen to music during meetings, I just lower the volume to hear the people.

Ah don't forget to say fu Spotify