Considering that it's first and foremost an audio format it only makes sense to invest in a mic that produces the clearest sound. If a clip-on mic could achieve that then that's what they'd use. They still use those massive camera rigs that move on wheels to film in studios too, where as one might think that any modern camera on a tripod would do the same thing - it wouldn't.

Because they sound better.

Basically every podcast on the planet opts for 1 of 2 microphone choices, both of which are industry standard in radio.

• the Shure SM7B
• the Electrovoice RE20

They both offer excellent audio quality for ~$500.

When your working in an audio medium, people will notice if your audio quality is sub-par a lot faster than if your video is sub-par in a visual one.

it's pretty difficult to capture human voices accurately while rejecting ambient noise, and a larger diaphragm and its supporting components need larger housing than a mic that isn't as particular.

techzone audio makes their mics by hand and has good informational videos showing the internal components; you can see there's not a ton of empty space inside their mics, and the diameter itself is determined by the internal housing and necessary components.

It solves a few problems podcasters have,

1. ambiant noice; the typical "podcast/radio" microphones are designed to reject pretty much everything besides what is in front of them, and are very good at it (within limits you may not hear the hvac system but you'll hear a door slam). The closer the microphone is the source(person), the less you have to turn up the volume. When you turn up a microphone's volume, it's going to turn up the volume of everything the microphone has captured; background noise, traffic, electrical interfernace, etc. The less you have turn up all the extra crap, the better the sound will be.

2. multiple people in close promiximity. People sound different, one person might be soft spoken and the other might be loud. In order to hear the quiet person you need to crank their microphone up. If the two people shared a microphone, you'd have to find a balance between loud enough and too loud; ultimately that would lead to a viewer constantly having to adjust their volume depending on who's speaking or paying an editor to do that.

3. if the microphones are farther away, the loud person's voice will get picked up by other people's mic and will cause strange sounding effects from that person getting picked up by multiple microphones.

4. consider the primary purpose of a podcast; people talking for a long period of time. Sound quality has to take priority. A news interview gets away with reduced sound quality because it's for a short period of time, often less than a minute. But if they had us listening to that bad audio for an hour, most people would tune out.

5. a lot of the problems I mentioned above could be fixed, or at least mitigated, with some audio editing before the episode is published. However, that doesn't help a live podcast. It also takes a long time, a 1 hour podcast with bad audio could take a day to go through it all; you have to reduce the background noice, balance everyone's audio, figure out how to make the softspoken person sound good without altering voice too while removing the background noise that's sometimes just as loud as them. It's even harder if eveyone is using 1 shared microphone, you end having to make edits everytime the speaker changes or accepting an infeiror product to save time. It's a hell of alot easier(and cheaper) to just get sound quality right from the start. With that, you might only have spend a little time to make some minor adjustments.

A large microphone is the difference between a serious podcaster, and some guy talking.

Studio mics tend to be big, it has its advantages. If your main medium is audio, a huge mic is not a problem.

Podcast is mainly an audio thing with video as an afterthought to reach more platforms.

I helped a guy set up his shot. He was adamount that his mic be visible in the shot. He just wanted it to look like other youtubers. That's it. It's a norm.

Early on in podcasting/vidcasting, you had two things going on. People coming from a professional media background (Leo Laporte, Adam Curry, etc.) who either had access to the high end broadcast equipment or bought what they knew. And then you had new podcasters who were on a near zero budget. Big mics had a lot more range for the money. It became symbolic even as equipment got smaller and cheaper. It became a sign that you're serious and legitimate.

Podcasts are an audio first format, therefore quality of audio is like the most important thing.

High quality audio recording requires a high quality microphone, and that microphone should be close to the speaker's mouth.

Video quality, and presentability of a podcast's set are necessarily lower priority than the audio clarity and quality.

It's all about appearance. Studio equipment is expensive, so it looks more professional.

Large diaphragm condenser microphones are really good at getting a lot of detail in the sound from everything that happens in the room. They sound really great, more crisp and detailed than dynamic microphones.

However.... Is that really what you want or need to capture people talking? That's rhetorical. It's not.

The best way to record a voice is actually to have a microphone near the mouth to get the closest you can get to the source of the sound. A smaller directional microphone can also be directed straight at the mouth so it doesn't capture all kinds of noise from around the room.

A headset would make the most sense from an audio perspective, but then you look like a call center employee instead of a cOnTent CreatOr.

I assume that larger size could be less sensitive for when the speaker repositions themselves. Imagine sitting still for two hours while talking about topics that steer up some emotions. It's just more natural to move a bit.

(I have no idea, I just assume that bigger microphones help with that)

They usually don't have anything interesting or meaningful to say, so they gotta have the big mic to at least give the illusion that they do? If they're boring/insipid/uninspired, at least they have good equipment?

They don't know what to do with their hands while they speak

LOL, yesterday I saw one I think it was Piker was being interviewed, and had this gigantic microphone in front of him and ever few seconds adjusting it's position, then you could see a tiny microphone on his shirt the same one the host was using.

I found it hilarious.

I guess in podcast space it looks like the bigger microphone you have the bigger deal you are.