Would love to know anything more about that reaction.
They have a website version but it's a paid offering, with it being part of a subscription now. It used to be a one-off purchase. Regardless, I haven't used it before.
Obviously I can't know what you have tried before, but I'd highly recommend Pocket Casts. I've been using this since at least 2014 (looking at a support chain that I had opened) and can't imagine losing the features they've got. It's shifted owners a few times and their mobile apps are now open source should you be interested in that.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. Look under settings for volume button comment navigation.
I'd tend to agree that it's not an expected default, but it's easy to disable.
72% is used overall, of which Steam represents 1.7GB
You can use old.reddit.com to bypass that, at least for now.
Stop giving them ideas!