I was among the first 100 listeners to TBPN. However, once the OpenAI deal was announced, I just lost interest. I couldn’t listen/watch if it was going to be even a little biased or apologetic towards OpenAI.
Then, recently, Stratechery announced their first corporate sponsorship Stripe. Ben Thompson was one of the best examples I had of reader-first monetization.
In both of these examples these changes probably don’t affect the quality of these publications (they probably greatly improve scale, access, quality). It should be an overall net good thing that there’s corporate patronage of serious intellectual and creative projects.
But I can’t really get behind it. I disliked the “going direct” trend of corporate comms and story telling. It has made several brands more human and great. But the ecosystem needs people that can say there unfiltered thoughts without fear of being rebuked or silenced (losing sponsors, or access to interviews etc.,).
I’m not interested in consuming more propaganda, insider takes and self-mythologizing.