For the low, low price of...hmm

This may be a bit of a follow up to the thing I pointed at yesterday that has me thinking about the creator economy and the dynamics of how it all works. I am finding it sort of baffling that people expect me to cough up a couple of bucks a month for every dang thing I come across.

It's not going to happen.

Some people might, sure. And I guess if you just look at it like a numbers game, like a spammer, maybe you kind of do OK. Even if you initially find that it's a way to make a bit of cash and you feel great about that, I'm going to say that the price is too high. Just like spam. Or ads. If I'm nearly continuously bombarded with teaser "content" and a big subscribe button, I'm just going to have to go elsewhere. Maybe that's just me and everyone else is fine with it but I really doubt that.

The price ends up being a large drain on everyone. The spammer who clogs email servers and inboxes with unwanted and off-topic schemes and pitches of all sorts just makes the system worse and wastes all of our time because they don't care about the 99.9997% of everyone who doesn't make them money. Because one or two fools responds, we all pay. With a noticeably worse experience. For decades.

The Madison Avenue types who have a hammer... no, wait, it's more like a bowl of spaghetti. The world doesn't look like a nail to this "strategy". The world looks like a wall. Throw spaghetti, see what sticks. Count money and repeat. I'm constantly being flailed about the head and neck by random flying spaghetti that I don't want and that wastes my time by stealing my attention.

It is exactly the same with this awful "subscribe or no soup for you" approach. Someone I like hearing from just said I don't get to hear anything important unless I pay up.

This makes me sad to see happening on a wide scale, and it also is pretty unrealistic as a system. Taken to it's logical conclusion, let's say I decide to spend $10/month on news and information. How many voices am I going to be able to hear? 2 people if they want 5 bucks each. Wow, this is some kind of super useful information machine we have here.

I understand the desire to feed yourself and provide for people you care about. Undoubtedly that needs to be solved. I don't believe that the model that depends on everything being behind a paywall scales very well. Ultimately most people will be disappointed. The people that read or watch your stuff will mostly be disappointed. The group of creatives you are now in, trying to land that sweet recurring subscription revenue will be disappointed. And the world is worse because it's all sitting somewhere on a spectrum between horrid spam and relentless non-stop advertising.

Be better. Think harder. Read some Mike Masnick and be more creative with your value proposition. Telling me I only get the garbage unless I pay is a lazy way to go. Will I pay? Sure. For the right thing. Your words, sorry to say, are never going to be that.