So what happens when free or nearly free podcast hosting is no longer available. Most of us in the podcasting / new media space understand the true cost of bandwidth, and while it is cheaper now than it was 5 years ago there will be major challenges for popular podcast that are now paying pennies on the dollar for what their actual hosting is costing are, if the free or nearly free hosting company goes out of business.
Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and your favorite podcast hosting company is going out of business, and you are now forced to pay between .15 and .19 cents a gigabyte to have your content delivered. That would make a lot of people sit back and really think about their shows.
Before that happens though my prediction is that podcast media hosting rates for those companies that do charge will be go up in the future, time will tell.