The only platform where I consume podcasts anymore is YouTube, because some (but not all) podcast creators will remove their embedding advertising on the YouTube release of their show, but not Spotify/Apple/etc. And, YouTube Premium gets rid of the platform ads. Lex is one show that does this. And, realistically, I've dropped any podcasts that don't even do this.

There are some podcasters that release ad-free versions on Patreon or similar platforms; but the listening experience on those platforms is so bad that while I would be fully supportive of the concept of direct payment to remove ads, the only platform that functionally supports this at this time is YouTube.

I'm not sure what features people consider important, as I've never used Spotify or other common podcast apps, but I've had a good experience getting podcasts through Patreon and then adding them to AntennaPod through their rss feed.

Youtube + the sponsor block plugin is my goto when it's an option.