[quadrangle]

The big picture is that podcasts are economically public goods (non-rivalrous, non-exclusive), or at least would be completely if not for copyright restrictions legally.

Ads detract from the value. In other words, as a resource, ad-laden podcasts are worse than ad-free podcasts.

If you ask people to pay to access the ad-free versions, that's a "club good" (non-rivalrous but now exclusive). That also dramatically reduces the value to the world. (Also, the existence of ad-laden ones is a detraction itself, even affecting the ad-free versions because ads create conflicts-of-interest).

So, all the economics here is about about the public goods dilemma. How the heck can fund the work without all these detractions? Taxes? I'm not saying the answer is easy, I'm saying we should get the question right.

The one view I reject: that somehow ads in podcasts are a good thing. Rather, ads are an unfortunate compromise given the challenges of funding public goods. There's little room for debate there.

What is called for is specifically funding models that somehow coordinate critical mass of people without the use of paywalls or detractions like ads.