I’ve noticed a lot in my feed making that move also. I agree this may end poorly for a lot of good podcasts.

A lot of people are already sick of everything being a subscription based product. I know I pay for too many. There are so many ways to consume media you just move on to the next thing that looks interesting and is free with ads (for now). Podcasting loses listeners, podcasters move on or go free with ads again with a much smaller audience.

People want to support quality media creators, but there’s only so much in the budget. Kinda like you pay for Netflix as entertainment but podcasts are more like radio, something you listen to but could start listening to something else if need be.