Audio has been around since, I suppose, the spoken language. The difference now is distribution and availability. Audiobooks, podcasts, smart phones, voice controlled home speaker systems, connected cars, and who knows what will come next.
In a nutshell, the answer to Why Now? is because we can. Sure, microphones and book narrators have been around a long time. But...
I’m not sure I would have included Podcasts as a section in Audio for Authors had it not been so easy to create a...
Maybe it's a personal preference but I'm into the atmosphere. [ https://youtu.be/IInkT6n-NiM ]