Marques Brownlee has tremendous power because he can go direct to consumers; that is possible in media, and AI will make it possible everywhere.
Apple Earnings; OpenAI, GPTBot, and Robots.txt; Zoom’s Terms-of-Service
Apple’s earnings were boring, which is a credit to the company, while OpenAI and Zoom raise questions about data and AI
The Unified Content Business Model
Every content company is or should be moving to a model that incorporates both subscriptions and ads; creator platforms should help their publishers do the same.
Spotify’s New Home Page, Categorizing Advertising, Spotify’s Competition for Discovery
Spotify announced a new home page, which makes sense both in isolation and in the context of Spotify’s competition with YouTube.
Sharp Tech and Stratechery Plus
Stratechery is launching a new podcast: Sharp Tech with Ben Thompson. In addition, the Stratechery Update subscription has now been expanded to the Stratechery Plus subscription, including the Stratechery Update, Stratechery Interviews, Sharp Tech, and Dithering.
Spotify’s Investor Day, Spotify’s Music Aggregation, Podcast Anecdata
Spotify’s investor day may not have convinced Wall Street, but the company provided compelling evidence its approach was working.
An Interview with Coda Founder (and Bundle Expert) Shishir Mehrotra
An interview with Coda founder Shishir Mehrotra about documents, go-to-market, and competing with Microsoft, plus bundling, Spotify, and Passport.
Substack Launches App, Substack and the Four Bens, In-App Purchase and the Substack Bundle
Substack launched an app, which isn’t a surprise given their VC model, but which portends change all the same.
Stratechery and Thanksgiving
An update on Stratechery and why I’m particularly thankful this Thanksgiving.
Technological Revolutions Follow-up, Crypto and Cheap Energy, The Stratechery 2+ Schedule
The current technological revolution is probably still in deployment, not mature; cypto, meanwhile, is waiting on a key input. Then, the Stratechery publishing schedule is undergoing a big change.