Most podcasts take the form of a bunch of people at a table, each by a mic, who talk about ... stuff. It's unscripted. Unplanned. Shoot from the hip. And, unsurprisingly, it's also very boring. Contrast that to Rogan, who runs a podcast I despise, but who at least has a producer plan set ups to surprise his guest with something about them or their past they'd rather not talk about. To create tension or conflict. Better, think of This American Life, which follows documentary radio format. A subject is chosen for each episode. It's broken into two or three segments with a matching theme. Producers go out and interview people in the field who have something to say and the quotes curated so you get the interesting bits and not a bunch of wandering commentary. Then there's scripted VO to tie everything together.
Podcasters have conflated disorganized talk with produced and informed commentary. And people got better things to do than listen to boring nonsense even if they're stuck in traffic. I mean, there's always music!