A Media Ownership Model: Why Subscribe When You Can Invest?

Substack sits on top of a trend that’s very dear to me: the democratization of monetized information. In simple terms, writers can earn money by sharing valuable information without the dependency on a publisher or newspaper. That’s not just better for creators but also for consumers because they can have a direct relationship with each other.

One reason this is personally interesting to me is that I sense a comparable network happening here at Substack, where a huge amount of the value created is flowing to the creators. Now, it's true Substack authors don't participate in the enterprise value of Substack, Inc, but theoretically that could be part of the package through more traditional... See more

The subscription access business model results in a creator’s dilemma. If their best content is paywalled, how will they demonstrate the value of subscribing to new readers? If their best content is paywalled, subscribers have no way of accurately assessing the quality of a creator’s work.