Podfic IS more labor intensive than fanfic--there's more technology involved, more steps (for the podfic reader as well as the listener), more intermediaries (like an archive or a filesharing site)--it's harder work.

This is not true for me at all! I'm both a writer and a podficcer, and it takes me far longer and is far more difficult to write a story than to record a podfic of the same length. This probably varies a lot between different writers and podficcers.