[rchaud]

You're right, but is the solution to that an adblocker? Or should users simply follow the age old principle of "buyer beware"?

I'm all for adblockers on the web, due to their tracking nature, but podcast ads aren't served from some third party that eats up bandwidth, causes page jumps or autoplays video. They aren't even like Spotify ads, which seem to know when you've muted audio.

Is it really that taxing to fast forward through them?

[endorphone]

I'm not speaking for or against this product. It's just remarkable how so many see the current podcast ad tactic as somehow wholesome or less obnoxious, when really it's a world worse. And then they'll claim that it doesn't affect them, caveat emptor, etc, which is simply bullshit -- if they've bought into it being wholesome and "valuable", they are in every way the mark. They are the reason advertisers love this gimmick in podcasts.

[rchaud]

> if they've bought into it being wholesome and "valuable"

I don't know if that's a representative opinion. Ads are ads. Having the host read copy doesn't tell me anything about whether the product works for me.

There's a scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt gestures at a bus stop men's underwear ad with a chiseled model on it and says dismissively "Is that what real men look like?"

Moments later, he is shirtless, with a perfectly chiseled body (that fitness trainers will tell you is impossible to keep year-round) fighting waiters and parking lot attendants.

The movie itself is an ad. It would never have sold well if two schlubby middle-aged actors had been cast to play it.