No clue if this will work for you or not, but there are a few things you might try.
It is hard when you have a business. You really have to actively try to stay away from them. They control so much business infrastructure.
I know my business partner (god bless him, great friend but…) is super into big tech and every new product they offer. So it’s a bit of an uphill battle.
And I’m lucky. I own my own firm. Most people don’t have such a luxury.
Do you think a low barrier to entry would be a good thing though? I feel as though that would invite politics, censorships, free speech discussions and the like into the Fediverse.
Normies, culturally, will still be normies. I know various fandom subcultures have suffered sad fates like this.
I don’t know, I think a usability/freedom balance needs to be delicately handled.
I’m more inclined to not be annoyed too much by ads on podcasts where you know it’s just some guy or gal getting compensated for the work they are putting into their podcast. That said, maybe I’m getting way fewer ads on Antennapod because of said adblocking, not sure.
I will say, it has a bug where it will not work in a work profile. You can install it but it won’t playback. Which is annoying. But for me it is a small complaint.