iCal usually means two things: the .ics file you attach to an email, and Apple Calendar (or any client that subscribes to an iCalendar feed). Both are useful. Neither books a podcast guest.
What iCal is good at
- Putting a timed event on a device the guest already uses
- Subscribing to a public or private feed of events
- Working across Apple, Google, and Outlook clients
GuestFlow sends .ics with confirmations and reschedules. That is how a booking becomes an event on a phone. The file is a receipt, not the product.
What iCal does not do
An iCalendar feed will not ask a guest what they want to talk about, store recording consent, write talking points, deliver a Riverside link at the right time, or tell you which invited guests never booked. Those are show operations. They live in GuestFlow, then the calendar event is the last mile.
Keep iCal. Use it as the calendar artifact. Use GuestFlow for everything that has to happen before and after the slot.