While surfing around, I came across mention of podcasters trying to get money for their podcasts from downloaders.
Model 1: "podshare" -- which says it's like shareware, 'though I think it is actually begware.
See an explanation here.
Model 2: Bitpass -- which will, I guess, charge micropayments for each download.
See a description here. See another description here.
I like the geeky situation now. But maybe this is the future. Will the iTMS charge for podcast downloads?