How is Nostr a better version of that? Where is the better replacement for podcasting built on Nostr without RSS? I say let them cook, and see what they can build, rather than complaining.

Not a fan of XML either, but it works. And it's pretty darn sweet to tell my normies to "search for my release's title in their favorite app". Nearly all of them have one. The ability to use stuff like pod.link entirely on my own whim for my normies is pretty sweet. And the response among the music normies around me (some of which make decent living from music) has mostly been "I am interested, when can we have a coffe". They understand it. And they'll understand nostr, in due time. Pc2 is a great gateway to the heavier drugs!

Your this very message is a "podcast" of text .. your text is stored on multiple relays and my client can discover it .. it is already 1000 x better model than sending XML to likes of Spotify and Apple ..for feeding to their own client apps .. Add to it #blossom ..you can host signed audio content .. All you need is ability to play mp3s in nostr client .. Artist profile becomes a web page for the podcast ..you can see all the episodes .. This is the ONLY way to make a dent on Apple and Spotify... If creators move to nostr for podcasting .. and biggies are choked off new content ... Then only they will even look at v4v ..

Despite its longevity and widespread adoption, the RSS-based system suffers from several inherent architectural weaknesses that create centralization pressures and points of vulnerability. It was great before a thing like nostr existed .. but now it is a drag .. Centralized Points of Failure: The entire system hinges on the availability of the hosting provider. Both the media files and the RSS feed itself are typically served from a single, centralized source. If that host experiences an outage or goes out of business, the podcast becomes completely inaccessible. There is no native redundancy in the protocol. Gatekeeper Power: The dominance of Apple Podcasts and Spotify as the primary discovery platforms gives them immense power. They can de-list a podcast for any reason, effectively cutting it off from the largest potential audience. Their terms of service dictate what content is permissible, creating a powerful vector for censorship that bypasses the open nature of the underlying protocol. Lack of Data Integrity: The <enclosure> tag simply points to a URL. There is no mechanism within the RSS protocol to verify that the file at that URL is the correct, untampered-with file. A malicious actor who compromises the hosting server could replace audio files without listeners knowing. Inefficient Update Mechanism: The polling-based model is inefficient at scale. It generates significant server traffic from clients repeatedly checking for updates that are rarely present, and it introduces a delay between when an episode is published and when it appears for listeners.