Luxury Media

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.

Community formation takes content as input (curation as a form of sensemaking) and outputs more content in the form of cultural production (creation as a form of cultural practice).

We no longer lack tools for creating content. When content production and distribution is infinite, the important aspect is its primary function in crafting and proliferating culture*.* In other words, the value of content today comes primarily from its use in cultural production.

When content production is infinite, we’re left asking, “ What is this all for?” An abundance of content leaves us with a dearth of context and meaning. Under the physics of infinity, media doesn’t need to be a vehicle for delivering more content. Instead, it should act as a lens through which we sensemake with content, and as a container for captu... See more

Community is internet-native media. Yet the vast majority of creators and publications are still built around the value of content . It’s no wonder why today’s digital media businesses are deeply broken.

In a luxury media landscape, the traditional roles of creator, curator, and consumer are being redefined. Artists are not just creators but are now stewards of cultural communities, leveraging their individual legitimacy to direct communal conversations and brands. In the Age of Average, where mediocre content is abundant, creators become artisans ... See more

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 ... See more

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 a... See more

This framework implies a return to patronage – we are not paying for utility, we are funding the story, the taste, the culture, and its support and proliferation.

Ironically enough, patronage is an even older media business model than advertising or subscriptions. During the Renaissance, patronage was symbiotic – it afforded patrons cultural capital... See more

When content production and distribution is infinite, the important aspect is its primary function in crafting and proliferating culture*.* In other words, the value of content today comes primarily from its use in cultural production.