Apple’s Podcast App now supports the posting of edited transcripts. It will also produce an auto-generated transcript, which can be downloaded, edited, and reuploaded. I wish they had done this sooner because songs have displayed song lyrics for a couple of years. Yet, this is a big step forward because many podcast hosting platforms do not support transcripts, creating a major accessibility barrier. If you know of any accessible podcast platforms please share them.
Supporting transcripts is great for accessibility. Auto-generating them is not great however. Automatically generated transcripts frequently make mistakes and allow texts to be scraped which podcasts may not want. Plus some podcasts discuss sensative and dangerous material that if people saw the wrong transcript for could cause harm. I think this should be opt-in, not automatic