Not necessarily. A lot of podcasts are hosted by places that detect your ip and splice in location-targeted ads for each individual download. Hence OP’s struggle with timestamps.
Unfortunately, the masses will still listen, so myself not listening will do jack-shit. The real way to do that would be a service or app that strips them out entirely.
It all has to start somewhere...taking the apathetic approach is not only not helping, but you're a part of what's making it worse by just accepting it.
That "somewhere" ought to be complaining to the FTC etc., because boycotts are hardly ever effective. We've put the mythical "free market" on such a pedestal these days that it seems like a lot of us forget that consumer protection regulation is even an option!
That's just not true. There will always be ads in podcasts, no matter if I listen to them or not; it's how they make money. That's not apathetic, it's a fact. If someone made a sponsorblock for podcasts, it would help immensely, which is what my original comment was about. Blaming one single person for there being ads in podcasts is something else.
It is true that some podcasts make money via other means, for sure. I didn't intend to say all podcasts, but many (most?) do have ads as the only way they make money. However, do you not want a Sponsorblock for others so you can have your cake and eat it too, just like you do now with adblockers? That's how you really give them the middle finger.