How Twitter and the Internet Broke the News

Both Substack and The Athletic do what the Internet does best—carve out deep, lucrative niches—and both rely on Twitter for discovery.

Even very well-read stories for large outlets may only generate $75 or $100 in revenue online. Not enough to pay a writer for a day’s work.”

This may just be a nicer way of phrasing Zuckerberg’s clown car comment. Twitter happened upon a once-in-a-generation shift: the Internet was changing everything about the flow of information. Twitter stumbled into such a massive opportunity that it couldn’t evolve quickly enough to ride the wave.

But if Twitter can understand its place in the media ecosystem—as a wayfinder of sorts for a sea of Internet content—and if it can pivot to a business model that better serves its most valuable users, it can better align cultural value and financial value. It can begin to capitalize on its potential.

Let’s cut straight to the chase: advertising isn’t the right business model for Twitter. Twitter doesn’t have the scale for advertising (it has about 10% as many MAUs as Facebook) nor the ad chops (hence its low ARPU).

By verticalizing, digital media companies could tap into more valuable niche audiences. Many of the companies above eschewed ads in favor of subscription or events, which better mined value from their most engaged customers.

Twitter operates like it’s built for entertainment, but it’s built for utility. This puts it in the company of LinkedIn and Discord.

When I think of Twitter, I think of Digital Darwinism. Digital Darwinism is the phenomenon that technology and society evolve faster than an organization can adapt.

So where does Twitter fit into all of this? The Internet created an explosion of content; Twitter helps make sense of it. Twitter is online media’s tool for discovery—for finding and acquiring customers.