I also can't help but think the comment was mocking the way some HN comments completely ignore the subject of an article to instead argue semantics, but who knows.
Sure. They're exactly the same argument, except that they're totally different. (Andy Rooney is wrong, anyway, if that's really his position. Smartphones are still phones. He's not making a good semantic argument.)
> Who cares?
Anyone who wants to listen to a podcast and then finds out they can't because it's not really a podcast—that people are just throwing the word "podcast" around like it means "audio, uh... interview? on a phone? or a laptop, too, I guess?".
Like Saran Wrap, the company failed to enforce the usage of the term and it became generic. Common usage of language appropriated the privately held term and you're over here indignant that the world has moved on, I truly can't understand why anyone would choose this hill to die on though.
Either way, common usage of the term “podcast” has changed. Language is defined by how it’s used.