Independent internet-native creators leverage the internet’s frictionless content creation and distribution, but they’re still trapped by traditional business models like subscriptions and advertising.

A subscription model is based on the promise of the production of future gated content. A publication or creator is paid to continue production, not necessarily for past production. We saw this firsthand at AMA, a creator growth agency I co-founded in 2019. Creators were only rewarded if they kept chugging out newsletters and videos. Extended breaks in content production resulted in high subscriber churn.

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.

Likewise, advertising powers free distribution on the internet, but introduces external stakeholders. The incentives transition to making content the best product that it can be for advertisers, taking the form of clickbait titles, outrage-inducing stories, and opens the door to censorship.

The longstanding struggles of digital media businesses drive home the fact that internet-native media requires a fundamentally different business approach. Monetizing content assumes that the value is held in the content itself. Under the physics of infinity – frictionless content creation and distribution – the marginal value of every additional article, tweet, meme, podcast, post, book, painting, etc. asymptotically approaches zero.

Instead, value accrues to the layer of cultural production – to the community. Internet native business models must be designed for this reality. An internet-native media business allows content to be freely accessed and distributed while leaning into the value of the community’s sensemaking, context, and cultural production.

The Great Differentiation

Luxury Media

Luxury Media