If that works for you, then that’s great. I’m not saying folks have to get into podcasts, I’m just explaining how I find them useful now. I did not get them for a long time either, because I had wrong expectations for them.

And well, I also happen to work as a software dev, but my brain hates when I have to process words that I hear, while also processing words that are on my screen.
So, my own 6h of music per day is generally without vocals, or at least vocals that I’ve heard many times before or which are in a foreign language, so that my brain doesn’t have to process them.

And that probably makes my music collection comparatively unengaging. I guess, I also don’t grab new music often enough to make it engaging that way.
With all that combined, music is kind of largely relegated to the background thing for me, and podcasts are a foreground thing, when I can’t look at a screen.

Again, just explaining how they work for me. It does sound like music could take the foreground role for you.