Other Platforms & Creator Culture
Podcast hosting
Also called: media host
A podcast host does two jobs: it holds the media files and it generates an RSS feed describing the show and its episodes. Directories such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify never hold your audio. They subscribe to that feed and pull from it, which is why a single upload appears everywhere. It also means the feed is the show. Own the domain your feed sits on, or at minimum be able to redirect it, because moving hosts without a redirect strands every existing subscriber. Hosts also produce your download statistics, and since each one measures slightly differently, numbers from two hosts do not compare cleanly.