It's an obvious progression. Make most podcast episodes free, for access to all episodes, pay a subscription fee to the podcaster. As Apple is dragged its fee

It's an obvious progression. Make most podcast episodes free, for access to all episodes, pay a subscription fee to the podcaster. As Apple is dragged its feet in this area it is no surprise that Amazon is doing the obvious. It'll be good for the podcasting industry to bring a real mechanism in for subscriber payment. Advertising is dead since everyone started using adblockers. The only problem I see here is that I hate Audible with the passion of a thousand burning supernovas. Podcast subscriptions will be epically mismanaged if handled by that crowd of bozos. Some of the worst user experiences ever are to be had with Audible software and business processes.