There is also a genre of Youtube video that competes with podcasts. Channels like
https://www.youtube.com/c/BattleshipNewJersey
and
https://www.youtube.com/c/Defunctland
have good visuals but have stand-alone audio tracks and make great background noise when you are doing something else.
Podcasts exist. And they're already great for 1 way audio communication.
So Clubhouse had to push for N-way audio communication as a differentiator, and it's really hard for that to be useful.
It's really rare for the audience's contribution to be useful. And it's even rarer for the audience contribution to be useful in a way that cannot be done equally as well, if not better, in an associated chat room with a live podcast.