Sterling Proffer

To understand your adjacent users, it is helpful to understand the attributes of who is successful today and why they are successful. The reason this is helpful is that your adjacent user is different on one or more of these attributes (but not all). These attributes create vectors of expansion.

The top 1% of musicians now make ~77% of revenue in music. Many factions of the independent musical infrastructure have become closer and closer aligned with corporate interests and advertising supported journalistic models in order to keep their head just slightly above water, and are in danger of losing their distinction and identity as a result.

There’s a growing body of evidence that suggests new artists who are enjoying success are emerging from scenes they participate in or are creating around themselves.

The further from goods and services you go, the closer you get to ideology and belief. If it’s the case that the goods and services are a means to a different end rather than the other way around, the question is: what are you leading your subscribers towards?

Upon reaching an equilibrium between free and paid content, creators and communities face another dilemma. Their revenue correlates directly with how much content they can produce. But reapplying that method forever would mean constantly increasing content output until every waking hour was devoted to production. Beyond sounding exhausting, studies... See more

The artists complaining about TikToks aren’t exactly condemning the platform. But they are showing that being on all the time, influencer-style, takes effort and talent that is different from the kind it takes to perform a great song. Do we really want our entertainers demystified and desperate? Are we too cynical and distracted to enjoy... See more