Forget Spotify for News. Let's Fix the Real Problem

Solving the problem of incentivizing creative work that endures: Most media distribution and monetization models incentivize quantity over quality. Newspapers, radio networks, podcasts, magazines, books, movies, and on and on receive the lion’s share of their revenue in a short window after release. It is increasingly hard for any medium to have bl... See more

People like to talk about how media needs new business models. The business models are perfectly fine. People will either pay for the content themselves or their attention will be monetized with advertising. Those are fundamentally good business models.

The real breakthroughs that enabled the revival of the 1,000 True Fans model are better understood as cultural. The rise in both online news paywalls and subscription video-streaming services trained users to be more comfortable paying à la carte for content. When you already shell out regular subscription fees for newyorker.com, Netflix, Peacock, ... See more