I increasingly use podcasts much as I use any other informational resource: selectively, and with search as a key modality.
Some podcast apps (Podcast Republic, in my experience) feature a comprehensive search over all known podcast episodes, by both title and description (of the channel and individual episodes). Searching for an obscure reference to turn up related episodes is quite useful.
That's not actually my principle app (I prefer the FS/OSS AntennaPod), but it is useful functionality.
Otherwise, there are podcasts I subscribe to and listen to most episodes, others that I'll pick and choose at, some that I just check out a few episodes on. What I typically do is go through and curate a set of episodes that look like they'll be interesting, putting them on my listen queue and/or downloading those to play later.
As with anything, there's much that's low-quality and/or not of interest. That doesn't mean that the good stuff isn't really good, though.
(Listening to David Runciman right now, who's had a numbere of serial podcasts, one of which I'd discovered through a comment here on HN a month or so back. His discussions of political philosophy and its history are excellent. Relevant, without being painfully topical.)
(And I think TFA's premise is ... ridiculous on its face. Podcasts are appropriate in some cases, completely not in others.)
Some podcast apps (Podcast Republic, in my experience) feature a comprehensive search over all known podcast episodes, by both title and description (of the channel and individual episodes). Searching for an obscure reference to turn up related episodes is quite useful.
That's not actually my principle app (I prefer the FS/OSS AntennaPod), but it is useful functionality.
Otherwise, there are podcasts I subscribe to and listen to most episodes, others that I'll pick and choose at, some that I just check out a few episodes on. What I typically do is go through and curate a set of episodes that look like they'll be interesting, putting them on my listen queue and/or downloading those to play later.
As with anything, there's much that's low-quality and/or not of interest. That doesn't mean that the good stuff isn't really good, though.
(Listening to David Runciman right now, who's had a numbere of serial podcasts, one of which I'd discovered through a comment here on HN a month or so back. His discussions of political philosophy and its history are excellent. Relevant, without being painfully topical.)
(And I think TFA's premise is ... ridiculous on its face. Podcasts are appropriate in some cases, completely not in others.)