Aren’t you basically just describing FOSS and framing it as a complaint? Valve for example has a vested interest in improving their software stack, and they do just that by donating both money and engineers to various projects. If these open source projects did not exist, they would have to spend the same or even more money on a proprietary licensed alternative, or to develop their own solution.

There is a specialized player for that. Just run this command:

cat podcast.ogg >> /dev/null

Gets rid of all the uninteresting parts of any podcast!

If you’re getting rid of a (rusty) drive and it leaves your hands with the cool magnets and shiny frisbees still inside, you’re doing something wrong.