I wish there was a reality where content creators understood that ads just don't work on some people. I understand that they need money, and I listen to the ads when I can't fast-forward through them, but it's a complete waste of time on me.

And I do have a desire to block ads in every single part of my life, I just don't practically go any further than regular uBlock origin in Firefox.

I'd actually rather pay for good podcasts than get intrusive ads.

Sponsorship money is to my understanding pretty much always paid beforehand; the marketer gives a sum of money and just for doing the ad read, the podcaster gets paid.

Actual payment on clickthrough/conversion rate is pretty uncommon. The podcaster isn't harmed by anyone skipping the ads.

Why wouldn't they get paid? You download the whole episode, it's not different than downloading it to your phone. They don't know if you listened to the ad any more than if listening via an app without this step inbetween.

Exactly. If you are going to use this, I believe you should also become a patron* of the podcasts you do it to. And, in that case, you often have access to an ad-free version anyway.

*or "tip" or whatever other monetization channel they have. Very few rely solely on ads.

Ding ding ding.

A lot of podcast authors offer ad-free versions as a paid feed to members, which to me, invalidates the ethically dubious “but the podcaster has already been paid” argument.

They should be given the choice to do this.

I feel like the slippery slope is immensely dangerous as it always is with these products.

Don't they have a day job?