People say the like to listen to music or podcasts on the subway too, therefore saying subway commuting time is not wasted... Yet if you ask them if they ever listen to podcasts for an hour or two on their days off, they'll reply 'of course not'.

Suggesting to me that these people don't actually want to dedicate an hour of their life to listening to podcasts - they're just fooling themselves to justify spending 2.5 hours a day on the subway commuting to their jobs.