👏 Well said Matt!
Many of the features suggested in Michael's piece are already being explored as a part of the https://podcastindex.org/ project.
But more importantly, Spotify seems particularly hungry to be the "centralized platform" for podcasting. They want discovery, consumption, and monetization can happen in the same place. That desire serves no one but Spotify and their shareholders.
One centralized platform = bad for creators. (I discuss this in more detail here: https://justinjackson.ca/podcasts-and-capital).
I have many friends at Spotify, and support their work, but I am not a fan of them attacking the open-standard.
