I think it's odd to give sole control of moderation to podcast creators. It quickly leads to creators sanitising feedback to prefer only positive feedback.
You can sell your user's data to advertisers, or you can sell control or you can find some other channel.
We're e.g. playing with the idea to add a live podcasting feature that allows user's to comment and tip during a show a la Twitch.
I dont see this as a big issue. It seems to be a place for podcast community members to gather and discuss instead of making yet another discord. If you dont have positive feedback for a podcast why comment at all to begin with? The podcast medium is entirely built to taste and fits well with being a bubble (despite bubbles usually being a negative thing).
The hidden issue would be power to cover up a scandal, so I would hope that for serious issues users can report a podcast and site admins can handle it appropriately.
The quality of a podcast is not going to be uniformly positive. So a listener's feedback isn't going to be uniformly positive. It becomes a problem when the primary space for discussing a subject only permits positive feedback. Healthy communities do require negative feedback.
It's ironic that creator of Podbabble couches the creator-based moderation as a means to
> Foster healthy communities. Podbabble lets you moderate, adjust ratings, and flag comments as you see fit.
Too often, allowing the subject of a forum to moderate the forum leads to suppression of valid critique. And good critique can also come from outsiders; those who are not regular listeners.
A better alternative for Podbabble would be to allow creators to sponsor their podcast's forum, perhaps having it be featured more prominently or by removing comment rate limits.