I don't really think that its for the same use case. I recently wanted to learn more about Jane of Arc after listening to a Rest is History episode about the hundred years war.

I took the wikipedia article and had NotebookLM generate a podcast from it so I can listen to it on a commute.

The other thing I could've done is search for an existing podcast on Joan of Arc, but I challenge anyone here to search existing podcasts and listen to the first, best reviewed one -- I think you'd find more often than not that the average podcast host is _significantly_ more dry than what the generated hosts present. The podcasts that are incredible are few and far between, and I have no influence over the topics they discuss.

Tldr: I'd prefer my top podcasts more than NotebookLM, but prefer NotebookLM to the average podcast host.