A Few Words Up Front
I can’t remember when I first heard the term “podcast”—it was one of those things I knew by name but had never actually encountered. In any case, about a month ago, I finally started listening to podcasts myself. As I kept listening, a few spontaneous thoughts came to mind, so I decided to write them down.
What Makes Podcasts So Unique?
The Format Is Just Right
In my eyes, podcasting is an information medium that sits in an intermediate form. Before I tried it, I thought podcasts were a bit odd—neither here nor there. They weren’t as engaging or easy to follow as video, nor as direct and plain as text. But once I actually started listening, I realized that podcasts are perfect for those fragmented moments in life when time and space are constrained—times when reading text or watching video might not be ideal. Driving, taking the subway, walking, doing chores, even lying in bed before sleep—these are all great podcast moments.
Looking purely at the outcome, I think podcasts fill a “vacuum” between text and video media. In terms of information volume (note: not information density), it’s video > podcast > text. Text is better suited for reading and reflecting in relatively static moments. Video is more mainstream and carries more information—it can theoretically include visuals, audio, text, and more—but that often comes at the cost of lower information density. In fact, I’ll listen to certain videos as if they were podcasts when their information density doesn’t really come from the visuals.
For example, text is easy to search and even summarize with large language models. Podcasts are much harder to summarize; if you use speech-to-text tools, you inevitably lose a lot of non-verbal information. And video is even harder to condense or summarize. Since video distributes information across multiple dimensions, the potential loss is enormous.
There’s a significant difference between writing and speech. Writing is a system of symbols—essentially a one-dimensional, plain encoding of information. When you talk to someone, though, you convey not just the words but also tone, facial expressions, gestures, and other dimensions of information. Spoken language carries far more information than text.
Face-to-face conversation carries the most information. Podcasts can’t show you the speaker’s expressions or gestures, but you still pick up extra dimensions through tone, reactions, and other cues.
To sum up: podcasts, despite their seemingly awkward in-between form, fill a real gap in the time and space where we consume information in daily life.
Intimacy and Immersion
From my perspective, listening to a podcast—whether it’s one person doing a solo monologue or multiple people in an interview—feels intimate. It’s like sitting just outside the studio, eavesdropping. That makes me more receptive to the information. Some might say video interviews are more lifelike. But I think the absence of visuals is, in a way, a kind of negative space. It pushes you to focus more, to compensate for the missing visuals, and in doing so, draws your attention to the content itself.
One thing that supports this from my own experience: I rarely skip forward when listening to podcasts, which is completely different from how I watch video. Part of that may be because it’s less convenient to hit fast-forward, but I also genuinely feel more engaged with the content.
High Information Quality
Some netizens describe podcasts as an “elite” medium, saying listeners tend to be people with relatively higher income and education levels. At least from what I’ve heard, there’s no shortage of high-quality content.
Everyone can pick the topics they’re interested in, choose shows they like, and subscribe through a podcast app. The concept is similar to RSS—and technically, it’s implemented using RSS. In a way, it’s also a way to say no to recommendation algorithms.
I’m not saying listening to podcasts makes you somehow “superior” to people who scroll through short videos—they’re just two different media for consuming information. But in reality, the number of people who know what podcasts are and are willing to try them is still quite small, at least in China. Which brings me to another point: adoption.
Low Adoption Rate
In the U.S., listening to podcasts is fairly common—about half of Americans listen to podcasts. The ecosystem is mature, with major platforms like Apple and Spotify holding significant podcast catalogs. In China, however, the audience is much smaller. From the creator side, there isn’t yet a monetization model as mature as overseas, which means many podcasts struggle to keep producing. I saw this firsthand while hunting for quality shows: I’d dig through old recommendation posts and find that quite a few had stopped updating years ago.
In Closing
Those are some stray thoughts from my first foray into podcasts as a medium. Barring any surprises, I think I’ve found a great new source of information, and I’ll keep listening for the foreseeable future. If you haven’t tried podcasts yet, give them a shot—see if the medium suits your taste.
This post is a thread I started on V2EX asking for podcast recommendations. I got a lot of great shows from helpful netizens. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested.
If you use an Android phone, give AntennaPod a try. It’s free, open-source, clean, and easy to use.