Pods work for themselves or in groups as partners....PAs will always have bosses. Pod schools seem to take you if you have a pulse, whereas PA school is very competitive (most of the ones near me get at least 7 students applying for each seat.... Most of them have roughly 10 per seat). Pods seem to make on average more money that PAs, but have longer training and much more debt. Peruse the pod forums here and get a glimpse of the anecdotal evidence as to how easy Pod school is to get into.
The other day, the floor I was working on in my hospital had 85% of the patients there having diabetes. Most of those folks need to have visits to a pod. With obesity and aging, I expect pod to be lucrative to someone with a plan and ambition. And there always seems to be a need for non physician "midlevel" providers like PAs and NPs. To get an idea of working conditions, the best advice is to shadow. A PA would know about PA work life, and a pod could tell you about a pod's, but few could do as much justice for you in comparing the two as what you could do for yourself by shadowing.
