Content and social are also unifying, with Twitch streaming and YouTube being the biggest video players. Meanwhile paid newsletters have taken off in a big way in the last two years. In content + community, an audience connects around a specific content producer through some platform.

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