The main point of the site isn’t that Ads are bad. It’s that too many Ads end up driving away listeners, and are therefore self-defeating. There’s an acceptable ratio of ads to content (10% airtime or less).

That’s a great point, and I’ll respond to that right after a word from this post’s sponsor: SpamCo.

There is a set of hobby casts in small niches.

Also in some countries you got public radio stations producing podcasts (even podcast first formats not played on radio) - while that might Fall under subscription, while not being a subscription on anything specific.

There is, but I’ve also seen some of my favorite hobby casts either get retroactively crammed full of ads or just get taken down entirely because, no thanks to the glut of bot traffic we seem to have nowadays, hosting fees grew to be untenable for a hobby project.

Yes, we have numerous fantastic podcasts in France, from the national radios (ads-free).

The coverage of topics is very good in some areas (non-tech) and so so in tech

Maybe all podcasters should learn by the French example, and simply threaten people to give them money, whether they are listeners or not? Threaten them with prison if they don't pay? Joe Rogan could show up at your door and demand that you give him money for his podcast.

By not having this mentality, we have high quality content that you are free to listen to.

I am not interested in philosophy but I am glad that my money is used to create philosophy content that raises the overall culture in the country.

You should try that.

You are right, there is a fourth category of public service/taxation.

I haven't listened to podcasts in years, but used to enjoy them. I would've paid for a YouTube premium-esque subscription to skip ads on all the podcasts on my podcast app of choice. I'd want the podcast to get a cut from that subscription that would make it worth it, in the same way YouTube premium makes it worth me not seeing ads.

(I use Sponsorblock on YouTube too since there are platform ads and then sponsors baked into the videos.)

What are the ones spreading blatant disinfornation financed by?

state sponsored and "wealthy benefactor" are definitely two more sources

Ads for protein powders, scam gold coins, Bitcoin scams, scam "doomsday" equipment ... there is a whole industry around such products for people falling for disinformation.

And by foreign state actors.

Don’t forget extremely expensive vitamins!

MyPillow

Don Jr has one too, how would we classify that one?