See, I agree that it's a mistake for them to miss more than two or three episodes a year. It's bad for their brand, it loses them money in the short term, it risks losing listenership (and thus more money) in the long term, and it's honestly unnecessary. A casual podcast like theirs should take no more than a few hours for one episode, including prep, recording, and editing.* They should be able to do two or three episodes in a week if they know they're going to be away for a while. It's only good business sense. Only 8 new episodes in 13 weeks is bad for them.

What I don't understand is why people get upset about it. Is there an implied breach of a mutual agreement? "They will provide weekly podcasts and we'll listen to and enjoy them." That's just not enough of an agreement for me to get upset about. Maybe it's because I can have a take-or-leave-it attitude to this podcast. I don't feel any emotional connection to the hosts, I don't feel any emotional connection to the work, I'm not paying for it, and I don't get a great deal out of it, so if it disappeared tomorrow I would be disappointed, but that would be it.

* Speaking of editing: When I heard Jenna on the last episode saying how she asks for her swallow sounds to be removed at specific points I realized that podcast editing must be a nightmare for this show. A loosely structured podcast like OL should take no more than a few hours at most to edit and publish, but for them it seems to be a multi-day affair. This is not This American Life or Serial. Micromanaging editing like that is ridiculous. Of course maybe Ear Wolf needs to justify the paychecks they're giving to the production team, so they don't care.