The problem with that podcast is that most of their selections are genuinely interesting - I even listened to them on long drives (e.g. "Origin of Species"). Even something I thought would boring like or "Farm Engines and how to Run" them turned out to be fascinating.
This one, on the other hand, seems to be genuinely boring. I couldn't get past the intro.
He has a number of tricks he uses from a monoto delivery, to meandering stories where the narrative constantly interrupts itself with. So you can’t really “follow along”.
My favourite episode (The Bear with a Comet on his Belly): https://www.sleepwithmepodcast.com/414/
To anyone who tries it, it's important to know upfront: there's nothing to "get." It's nonsense. It exhausts the brain without being interesting enough to keep it running.
I can't speak for other cheapskates, but I personally think it's more that YouTube is still so utterly inessential that if ads ever start managing to get past my ad blockers, I'll simply not watch.
Or if it is - why e.g. automated voices reading nyt articles are so bad?
Older (and cheaper, possibly self-hosted) text-to-speech software.
The professionals…
On a related note reading HN comments is a prime example of sleepy text. Gets me every time.