No, you are absolutely right. Episodic shows that call themselves “podcasts” are trying to capitalize on the popularity of podcasts as an open system while shirking the openness that makes them popular. We should refuse to call them podcasts, because they are not.

I find this sort of hard-line opinion funny in the context that the pod in podcasts comes from iPod, device which was notoriously locked down. 1st gen iPods required a Mac to upload audio to the device; iTunes was not even available on other platforms!

Not to be an apologist for Apple’s closed platforms, but my understanding was that the original iPod’s Mac-only limitation was significantly influenced by the fact it used Firewire, which was available on every Mac but very few PCs. Firewire was a critical piece of why the iPod was actually good, because it provided fast transfer rates for syncing lots of audio, and higher power for faster charging. USB 2 was comparable, but still quite new and not present on most computers that people already owned at the time.

While iTunes was required, it was free and there was no subscription or limitation on what you could sync to the device. Apple actually seemed to be generally anti-DRM at the time, launching the music store with DRM as an industry concession, but eventually removing it and even allowing users to download DRM-free copies of songs that were originally purchased with it.

As locked down as the devices are, they have always, and continue to support RSS feeds from outside apple’s walled garden.

It’s like it came from some bizarro universe where only apple allows side-loading of content, but Spotify and YouTube do not (so they can take a chunk of your revenue, and censor/shut out competitors).

It's unfortunate that the name is derived from a locked-down device, but that was never a limitation of the technology (which had nothing to do with Apple); I used to listen to podcasts before I ever owned an iPod.

This is genuinely wild to me, I've been listening to audio content on the web since since early 00s I can't recall if it predates ipod (01) or not. There must have been another term prior?

There was earlier downloadable audio content but it was really early 2000s with RSS/Winer/Curry/etc. when 1st gen podcasting got its name and really took on something like it's current form. You can identify various other points like Serial/money flowing in/cellular connections/etc.

I've been listening to podcasts since the 2000s, and have never owned an iPod. I used one app or another to download them, and listened on various non-Apple portable music players.

I've never owned an iPod, so no podcasts for me. I have thousands of MP3s (none purchased from iTunes) I listen to on a small portable device (not a smartphone).

If I'm not mistaken, 'play on demand' in this context is a backronym[1]. The iPod name is apparently a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey:

> The name came from a freelance copyrighter who, after seeing the prototype, thought of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!"[2]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym

2: https://www.pcmag.com/news/a-visual-history-of-apple-ipods

Thanks for article - possibly it's 'retcon nonsense' but the explanation of 'pod' preceding 'iPod' was told to me in the very early days of iPods so if it was made up then it was made up nearly 20 years ago.