A podcast doesn't stay relevant with a large and loyal audience unless it's actually good. To pretend like JRE is a continued success purely because he was on TV before 1) ignores the countless podcasts started by people far less famous than Rogan was when he started which have failed to take off and 2) sounds like a cynical, resentful thing you tell yourself feel better along the lines of "well, if I came from where Rogan did, I'd be just as successful."
Whatever you want to say about the reasons anyone tuned in to begin with, it's transparently unfair (and betrays your own "issues") to not offer a balanced perspective which includes the need to acknowledge the obvious which is that Rogan's success just might be _also_ due to the fact that he is a good interviewer, that he has good guests on his show, that he's able to spark interesting conversations, etc.
The idea that his TV stint and MMA fame makes a listenership of 12M an automatic thing is just laughable.
You appear to have missed that context and have launched into a passionate defense of his talent, behavior and personality. As a bonus you've dipped into the ad hominem well at least twice.
If you think it's impressive that somebody very famous can make a podcast with only three employees, ok. Go ahead and be impressed.
Don't like Rogan? Don't listen to him and leave it at that.
2. Some people come to his defense.
3. "Why is there so much effort to defend this person?!"
If only the rest of us could do so much with so little.