I do know that it was possible - even explicitly supported for a good while - to embed YouTube as an audio player with HTML, but isn''t anymore.

you can find various custom workflows folks have developed that take audio files and render them to a video with a static image in a way that's relatively frugal, bandwidth-wise.

I know this point in tech/media is basically the well, you might as well do it era because of exponentially improved network/GPU speeds, but we're going to have to reckon with the environmental consequences of all our bandwidth pretty soon and… idk…

last thing: as someone who's listened to podcasts since the internet radio days that I have no desire to see video of the process, nor would actually watching fit in any of the different day-to-day contexts in which I consume them. I would rather creators enjoy the little freedoms that come from audio-only (recording in sweatpants among a few other perks).