Earlier quoted context omitted.
The arms race is inevitable. Podcast companies haven't been receiving investments because of that sweet SquareSpace money. They want to track everything there is about how a podcast is listened to and by whom and then monetize that every way they can.
Right now, they're a long way from doing sophisiticated tracking. My podcast app just downloads an mp3 file from a feed; it's not executing any JavaScript, or otherwise doing anything they can use to do the kind of tracking that happens on the Web. That regime has been stable for decades, and I can't imagine it will change unless something changes to make it stop working for podcasters. Because moving their distribut…
The MP3 file might not change, but there's a chance that they are going to start watching you play it.
A lot of investments have been made in the podcast world recently and VCs usually don't make things better.