NPR One was toxic for NPR (the national company) in their internal politics. Smaller local stations fought back against having to promote the app on their broadcasts out of fear it would drive their local listeners away.
It was also missing a setting to only download on wifi. It blew through a couple gigs of my data on my drive home once, background data. I wasn't even using it.
A good example is Morning Edition, which cuts back and forth between the national feed and local reporting.
You'll have 3 minutes of "Korean War Ended", 2 minutes of "Mueller Investigation", then 5 minutes of "Help Minnesota Public Radio pick the best lake in the state - listen to why Mike thinks it's the one he grew up on".
The local stuff is so bad I've mostly stopped listening as well. Wish there was a way to only get the national component.
The local news is one reason I like to stream the local station on TuneIn rather than NPR's various apps. Where else do I hear local news from in this day and age?