The Next Phase of Social? Listen Closely | Andreessen Horowitz

In the past few years, startups like Substack, Patreon, and Shopify have created alternative ways for creators to build businesses online through direct transactions, rather than advertising. This shift exposed a simple fact: in an ad-driven world, creators were generally under-monetizing their audiences.

three themes will emerge: innovation in the content format, the evolution of the business model, and the growing ubiquity of audio.