Podcasting, like wikipedia, Linux, WWW and a few other relatively "free" objects are such an important counterexamples. There's so much to learn from all of them, like theoretical devices come to life.
The inability of big services (EG, google, apple) to monopolize or gatekeep podcasting relates directly to their failure to make money.(1) the protocol's minimal snooping options relates to the failure to implement digital adtech... and to the lack of good discovery/recommendation services. The unique freedom capabilities podcasting seems to have. The barriers(2) to entry... all so interlocked.
Spotify's big money attempt to make money off podcasting is/was all about buying exclusivity. Paying big podcasters (eg rogan) to remove their podcast from other players... podcasts spotify already had free access to. Not shocking or surprising, but instructive. They very big money... more than anyone would likely invest on podcasting proper.
The market panic when netflix realised it was in a competitive market with price pressure from both consumers and producers because competition. How are you supposed to have 50% profit margins like that! Google would rather walk away from a market than concede anything short of full price setter mode on either end.
There's this point where Peter Thiel and Karl Marx are finishing each other's sentences and drinking Rum. I'm starting to think that point is a certain type of prevailing market condition. The rest is derivative.
"Google says it plans on further increasing its investment in the podcast experience on YouTube Music and making it more of a destination for podcast fans with features focused on discovery, community, and switching between audio podcasts and video. The latter is something rival Spotify has also"
Anyone remember the "HD video race?" Online video was obviously a big thing. Bandwidth & quality were big problems receding as fast as broadband expanded. Google had an in-house video hosting service. They bought youtube. Other services still existed. Google effin plowed forward. They smoked everyone with their ability to implement HD streaming at massive scale. No one could keep up.
Now Google's PR statements refer to breakthrough features like "backgrounding video" as a multi-year effort to reach feature parity with spotify. oy.
Google can successfully do many things. The are capable of making excellent products. I think they're also capable of making many more economically viable products. However... the enormous profit margins they enjoy make anything short of monopoly pointless.
(1)Google literally sell ads on those same podcasts via youtube.
(2) At some point, "barrier to entry" goes negative. Early blogging tech lowered barriers to entry. Referring to modern social media's "barriers" feels like discussing the "challenge" of eating caramel popcorn dusted with coke.