Unfortunately the little door on my dishwasher sticks and won’t open 99% of the time so I have no choice but to chuck the pod in the bottom. It sucks, but my dishwasher works well in every other way and my dishes are clean enough so I’m not spending money on a new one until some other part of it breaks.
Mine does that too. I have learned to put smaller things in the front and larger things (like upright plates) at the back and it seems to be working well.
One of my former room mates had the same problem with the washing machine. They were two compartments and you put the main detergent in the smaller one. In practice it didn't make much of a difference, but still.
Assuming the other one is for fabric softener, the clothes got agitated with plain water, then soap added during the final rinse. But if you ask my 90 year old uncle, laundry soap is a capitalist scam anyway (their pillow cases feel like they are made of old fashioned oil cloth).
I also put laundry pods in the little compartment even though they say to just toss them into the thing where the clothes go. I do this because
The pre-rinse cycle will just flush out all the detergent before the actual cleaning cycle
The plastic shit that dissolves to release the detergent was getting all over my clothes and fucking shit up doing it the way the package instructs you.