I've noticed a major increase in ads injected into podcasts. In particular, I listen to 6 podcasts from Marketplace APM (Marketplace Tech, Morning Report (UK, US, Midmorning), Marketplace, and Make Me Smart). Warning, mini-rant incoming...
They started with preroll and post roll spots which were just self-promotion for their other shows. This was annoying on it's own because I'd hear the same ads like 12 times a day. But this year those spots were converted into location-based targeted ads, they are totally not the same volume or tonal style totally breaking my concentration. And there are spots in the middle of the episodes too. So now I would be "forced" to listen to the same ads like 30 times a day. Unbearable.
As to solutions:
There's an existing feature request for the top Open Source android podcast app AntennaPod.
I've been planning out my own hypothetical approach. The idea would be to use multiple strategies (similar to what @bet@lemm.ee, @133arc585 and @pallettownbry recommended in this thread) but actually implemented in a gPodder compatible self-hosted podcast server. This would allow one to offload the resource intensive work (audio analysis, audio transcription, LLM) to a more capable server (hypothetically) while being compatible with nearly any podcast app.
P.S. I actually pay for premium services for ad-free content where available: CBB World, Crooked Media Friends of the Pod, and Stitcher Premium (RIP).
Yeah, AntennaPod already has an auto skip config that I use to skip the first or last N seconds. Which I've configured. But it's not technically always 30 seconds or 120 seconds. And that doesn't help with mid episode ads.