I did that spontaneously almost a decade ago. Alcohol is overrated and I do not regret the decision. If one misses the flavor or other aspects, be advised there are now many excellent non-alcoholic drinks available (beer, wine, and even liquor approximations). Increasingly, I’m finding them available at restaurants and bars.
I generally hate them in consumer-targeted apps. Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with the model. Devs have to keep the lights on, especially if there is a cloud service behind the app. It’s all about what pricing model they set. However, pricing is hard. A lot of companies really screw this up right at the start. I also think a lot of businesses cannot resist the temptation to boil the frog and ask for more and more over time, until their pricing is way out of alignment with value delivery.
I think it’s because privacy is less an issue with podcasts (ads don’t have as many options to track) and enshitification of the experience has been on a slower roll than, say, youtube. Lately some solutions are out there in the form of commercial apps but they are limited and who knows if their biz model will survive. I’d like to see an open source solution but I haven’t found one.