[AlexandrB]

I think the big news in Podcasts is centralization. Many new podcasts get their money either from "networks" or by being part of one of the podcast walled gardens (e.g. Spotify). I suspect traditional podcasts will go the way of blogs soon and be largely superseded by several competing commercial platforms (think Medium). See, for example, the moves by Apple to turn their Podcasts app into a subscription platform: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/04/apple-leads-the-next-...