Here's my experience with podcasts, as a mild-moderate user, and it may explain part of the drop off. The first time I tried podcasts I listened to ones about

Here's my experience with podcasts, as a mild-moderate user, and it may explain part of the drop off. The first time I tried podcasts I listened to ones about my work (internal medicine, hospital based physician), I started with a few. Some were outgrowths of already established medical journals and they were very formal, posted rarely, and usually had bad audio quality but pretty good density of information. Then I found The Curbsiders, which was a much more down to earth podcasts of guys that sounded like they worked with me. More laid back but still informational. But over time they got successful and started having commercial backing and then that legal rapid voice-over and the honeymoon was over, it wasn't something that was "average joe" like me anymore, it was establishment and I stopped enjoying it and would rather just read medical literature or journal blogs because it's similar. Around the same time I also started listening to podcasts about spaceflight. The first one I listened to regularly got put aside when my wife couldn't stand the hosts. After listening to her reasoning, I was respected that it was not something that she enjoyed listening to because the hosts really turned her off by being stereotypical white male nerds that would interrupt guests to show off their knowledge and really gave off mansplaining vibes. That led me to look at other podcasts and then I found one (and by extension a set of three) that I really enjoyed them to the point where I decided to support it on Patreon. When I supported it, I found out there was a side benefit of joining a "members only" Discord. I didn't intend to use it and had never used Discord before but it happened right when COVID hit so I gave it whirl. That discord became a fun distraction and place to talk socialize online (probably amplified by the COVID isolation situation everyone went through). Now, I usually get spaceflight news from people there, and if I listen to the podcast it is behind the news, so I don't tend to listen to it as much. In summary for me: One successful podcast became big and something I didn't want anymore. Some were just not good quality and found better ones out there. And some are good and still going but the evolution in social media disrupted and replaced the podcast.