A quarter-century ago Seth Godin wrote the classic marketing book for the Internet Age, Permission Marketing.
Content creators have pushed it down the memory hole.
The idea of permission marketing is you move people up a “permission ladder.” It starts with a transaction, goes through various levels of subscription, and eventually reaches the “intravenous permission” you give the hospital after your bike crashes into a car.
I offered a friendly counterargument, writing that there are levels of permission below the transaction, like “click” permission and “sample” permission.
The point is we were both ignored.
Back then I was an Internet Commerce “expert” advising a start-up called Queit, which wanted to build a micro-transaction platform. Consumers would put cash into Queit accounts, through their credit cards. Publishers would collect a few pennies for reading a story, maybe a quarter for a day’s access to a news site. Advertisers could pay readers for attention, using the same currency.
Queit collapsed with the dot-bomb.
Or maybe we were early.
We now live in an age where writers, publishers, and creators of all description, offer Substacks that demand “subscription” permission. We may hand out a free sample, but in many cases you can’t buy a copy of today’s post. You can only subscribe.
This is silly. It guarantees failure, for both Substack and its creators. People don’t buy things that way. The creator economy is doomed.
At the same time, readers are losing access. I write about business, and for most stories I can only see the headlines, because everything is behind paywalls. I’d pay for access to a story from Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal. I don’t want a subscription. I’m not buying your worldview. I just want to see what you think about Amazon stock.
The Solution
While we’re still in this AI boom, there’s an opportunity to build a platform like Queit.
Substack could build it. Substack would be perfect for it.
But Google could also build it. Amazon could build it. Anyone who collects vast amounts of consumer data to support advertising could do it.
Substack is uniquely positioned because it has a critical mass of content, and a reputation for relative honesty among consumers. It’s already selling subscription permission. Why not sell smaller pieces?
I’m not a techie although I play one on the web. I’m a reporter, a writer, a creator. I’ve never had the patience (or the money) to build a business. I don’t like the nitty-gritty of it, the detail. I’ve got ADHD. My dad did, too, which made him a very bad businessman. He couldn’t follow through, and he lacked patience for the details.
But Substack has it. Every scaled business has it. Heck, a good ice cream shop has it. Maybe you have it.
This is also how advertisers can get involved in Substack. They can sponsor a day’s feed from a big creator, just like they sponsor everything else. They can put ads in front of stuff the way that they do with TV shows. Or they can pay to have people get their pitch, and thus subsidize the ad network.
I’m filled with ideas about this. I’ve been writing about it for over 40 years. But that’s all I’ve been doing, writing about it.
So please, someone. Build it. People will come. Substack has proven that people will subscribe to content they like. More will subscribe if they can save money after buying several copies of someone’s work.
