This Article had many factual errors. Key is in what the change actually was and what it affects. It was not about Apple Podcasts stopping downloads if a listener goes 5 episodes and 2 weeks not listening to a show. That has ALWAYS been how Apple Podcasts worked. That is NOT new.
The change Apple made - had to do with how they handled older episodes. In iOS 15 - Apple intro’d a bug or feature depending on who you talk to that once a paused podcast is restarted - it would go back and start downloading ALL unplayed episodes - not just those that you missed since last playing, but ALL unplayed. So if you started listening at episode 700 and listened to Ep 750 - then did not listen again to Ep 800 a few months later. It would try to download eps 1 to 699 and eps 751 to 799. In iOS 17 - Apple changed it to no longer download older episodes that were not played. It just unpauses that show and continues from the most recent moving forward.
That is the change. Which means new episodes - have NOT been impacted. This change impacted shows with large back catalogs the most. And again did not impact per episode numbers. What you thought was your unique audience size did NOT change.
There were multiple other items in the article that were not accurate as well. Overall - this article was not well researched.
