That said, IMO, the amount of podcasts that exist is just starting to ramp up. There are so many people who have yet to start listening/making one. The tools, like anchor, are miles ahead of where they used to be, but still have a long way to go.
And do you think more podcasts will be done with remote guests? Any good tools you recommend for getting good audio or video in that case?
If there were a magic bullet, take my money. But I doubt if there is, given the state of corporate video conferencing--which doesn't optimize for sound quality.
The "best" quality solution I've found is to have the other person make a separate audio recording and email it to me. But that certainly introduces friction and not everyone has mics laying around. However, in a lot of cases, consistently getting in the same room as people is tough.
One thing I've done is to try to take advantage of in-person opportunities as much as possible and just accept that there's going to be a lot of background noise at conferences, etc.