[reaperducer]

That seems like it would only happen if your player is spying on you.

No. It works the same way any newspaper, radio, and TV advertising work.

If advertisers sponsor a podcast and get zero return, then the advertisers stops sponsoring the podcast and the podcast dies.

[jmhnilbog]

A world where all podcasts have lo-fi production values and only weirdos with too much time and a LOT of interest in the topic at hand make them would be wonderful. The audio version of the early web. They can have podcast web rings instead of ads!